SOLITUDE.

SOLITUDE!-amidst these ancient oaks,

Whose shadows broad sleep on the mossy

ground,

And breeze-fanned boughs send fortha slumberous sound,

Whose rugged trunks the hoary lichen cloaks,

Where leaps the squirrel, and the raven croaks—
These rifted thorns, with snaky ivy bound,

In many a fold fantastic, round and round,-
These tree-Laocoons-which the woodman's strokes
Shall never make to totter to their fall,—

Which time alone shall waste, how dear art thou To me, who commune with thy calmness now, When peaceful Evening spreads her purple pall,

And Contemplation, with her scroll unfurled,

Brings sad-sweet thoughts to wean me from the world

TIME'S WAVES

AVE follows wave towards the waste sea-shore,
One rising where another doth subside;

So day to day succeedeth evermore,

Those silent waves on Time's unresting tide;

And we are like the ocean-birds, that ride
Upon the billows; on their summits hoar
One moment now they sit, and seem to soar;
The next, into the black abyss they glide
Thus we elated rise, and are deprest

Upon the changeful billow of each day,

In light and gloom alternate, ne'er at rest,

In good nor evil ever at a stay,

Yet looking still to find some halcyon nest

Of peace, when all Time's waves have passed away.

THOMAS NOEL.

THE ACONITE.

LOWER, that foretell'st a Spring thou ne'er shalt

see,

Yet smilest still upon thy wintry day,

Content with thy joy-giving destiny,

Nor envying fairer flowers their festal May,-
O golden-chaliced Aconite! I'll lay

To heart the lesson that thou teachest me;
I, too, contented with my times will be,
And still a placid aspect will display
In tempest-troubled seasons,-nor repine
That others, coming after, shall enjoy
A calmer day, a sunnier sky than mine;
To speed the present, be my sweet employ;
To cast into a stormy world my mite
Of cheer, like thee, gloom-gilding Aconite!

THOMAS NOEL.

EAUTY still walketh on the earth and air:
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold

As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled;

The roses of the Spring are ever fair,

'Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair,

And the deep sea still foams its music old:

So, if we are at all divinely-souled,

This beauty will unloose our bonds of care.

'Tis pleasant, when blue skies are o'er us bending Within old starry-gated Poesy,

To meet a soul set to no worldly tune,

Like thine, sweet Friend! Oh, dearer this to me

Than are the dewy trees, the sun, the moon,

Or noble music with a golden ending.

ALEXANDER SMITH.

:

TO AMERICA.

OR force nor fraud shall sunder us! Oh ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,

Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; Oh ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand

Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered-children brave and free
Of the great mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an empire wide as Shakspeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

SYDNEY DOBELL.