SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

BY N.

P. WILLIS.

I LOVE to look on a scene like this,

Of wild and careless play,
And persuade myself that I am not old,

And my locks are not yet gray;
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,

And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice,

And the light of a pleasant eye.

I have walked the world for fourscore years ;

And they say that I am old, And my heart is ripe for the reaper, Death,

And my years are well nigh told.
It is very true; it is very true;

I'm old, and “I 'bide my time :"
But my heart will leap at a scene like this

And I half renew my prime.

Play on, play on; I am with you there,

In the midst of your merry ring;

SATURDAY

AFTERNOON.

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I can feel the thrill of the daring jump,

And rush of the breathless swing. I hide with you in the fragrant hay,

And I whoop the smothered call, And my feet slip up on the seedy floor,

And I care not for the fall.

I am willing to die when my time shall come,

And I shall be glad to go;
For the world at best is a weary place,

And my pulse is getting low
But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail

In treading its gloomy way;
And it wiles my heart from its dreariness,

To see the young so gay.

Though the blossoms be ripe on the China tree,

Though the flower of the orange be fair to see,And the pomegranate's blush, and the humming-bird's

wing, Throw the charms of elysium, O South, on thy spring ; It is dearer to me to remember the North, Where scarce the green leaf yet comes timidly forth, To walk in thy gardens, and dream that I roam Through the verdureless fields and the forests of Home.

If the golden-hued oriole sing from the tide,
Oh, the blue bird is sweeter by Delaware's side :
And the sound of that flood on the beaches so dear!
Ne'er ripples the river so pleasantly here.
Oh, the pebble-strown beaches, that echo all day
To the kill-deer's shrill shriek and the bank-swallow's lay,
And at eve, when the harvest moon mellows the shade,
To the sigh of the lover, the laugh of the maid !

China tree! though thy blossoms, in chaplets, may bond The brows of the brave, and the necks of the fond,

THE CHINA TREE.

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Never think that fit garlands our oak cannot form,
For heads as majestic, and bosoms as warm,
They may sit in thy shade, but their dreams are away,
With the far hills and forests, yet naked the gray,
With the floods roaring wildly, the fields lying bare,
And the hearts, -oh, the hearts, - that make paradise

there!

ONE evening wet and weary came Friendship to my door, And begged for shelter from the storm—I'd sheltered

him before A piteous look he gave me, and asked in accents mild If his companion I'd let in, he said, a harmless child.

I stirred the dying embers, and soon the fagot blazed, I spread my frugal table, the wine their spirits raised;