Cooling its fever, and the pleasant sun
Shone on familiar objects, it was like
The feeling of the captive who comes forth
From darkness to the cheerful light of day.
Oh! could we wake from sorrow; were it all
A troubled dream like this, to cast aside
Like an untimely garment with the morn;
Could the long fever of the heart be cooled
By a sweet breath from nature; or the gloom
Of a bereaved affection pass away

With looking on the lively tint of flowers-
How lightly were the spirit reconciled

To make this beautiful, bright world its home!

TO LAURA, TWO YEARS OF AGE.

BRIGHT be the skies that cover thee,

Child of the sunny brow

Bright as the dream flung over thee
By all that meets thee now.
Thy heart is beating joyously,
Thy voice is like a bird's,
And sweetly breaks the melody
Of thy imperfect words.

I know no fount that gushes out
As gladly as thy tiny shout.

I would that thou might'st ever be
As beautiful as now,-

That Time might ever leave as free
Thy yet unwritten brow,-

I would life were "all poetry,"
To gentle measures set,

That nought but chastened melody
Might stain thine eye of jet-
Nor one discordant note be spoken,
Till God the cunning harp hath broken.

I would but deeper things than these
With woman's lot are wove,
Wrought of intenser sympathies,
And nerved by purer love.
By the strong spirit's discipline,
By the fierce wrong forgiven,
By all that wrings the heart of sin,
Is woman won to Heaven.

"Her lot is on thee,” lovely child—
God keep thy spirit undefiled!

I fear thy gentle loveliness,

Thy witching tone and air;

Thine eye's beseeching earnestness

May be to thee a snare.

The silver stars may purely shine,

The waters taintless flow

But they who kneel at woman's shrine

Breathe on it as they bow

Ye may fling back the gift again,

But the crushed flower will leave a stain.

What shall preserve thee, beautiful child?

Keep thee as thou art now?
Bring thee, a spirit undefiled,

At God's pure throne to bow?
The world is but a broken reed,
And life grows early dim :
Who shall be near thee in thy need,
To lead thee up-to Him?

He, who himself was "undefiled:"
With him we trust thee, beautiful child!

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

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 it 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;

I can feel the thrill of the daring jump,
And the 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.

BETTER MOMENTS.

My mother's voice! how often creeps
Its cadence on my lonely hours!
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer
While leaping pulses madly fly,
But in the still unbroken air

Her gentle tone comes stealing by,

And years, and sin, and manhood flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.
The book of nature, and the print

Of beauty on the whispering sea,
Give aye to me some lineament

Of what I have been taught to be.
My heart is harder, and perhaps

My manliness hath drunk up tears,
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years-
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.
I have been out at eventide

Beneath a moonlight sky of spring,
When earth was garnish'd like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing—
When bursting leaves and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,

And all that makes the pulses pass

With wilder fleetness, throng'd the night

When all was beauty-then have I

With friends on whom my love is flung

Like myrrh on winds of Araby,

Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung.

And when the beautiful spirit there,
Flung over me its golden chain,

My mother's voice came on the air
Like the light dropping of the rain—

And resting on some silver star

The spirit of a bended knee,

I've poured her low and fervent prayer
That our eternity might be