AN AMERICAN FOREST SPRING. BY A. B. STREET. Now fluttering breeze-now stormy blast, "Tis changed!-above, black vapours roll, Hark, that sweet carol! with delight And Nature, in her brightening looks, Tells that her flowers, and leaves, and brooks, And birds, will soon be ours. AN AMERICAN FOREST SPRING. 271 A few soft sunny days have shone, The air has lost its chill, A bright green tinge succeeds the brown Off to the woods —a pleasant scene Here sprouts the fresh young wintergreen, Though in the hollows drifts are piled, Where its long rings uncurls the fern, Casts back the white lid of its urn, Beautiful blossom! first to rise And smile beneath Spring's wakening skies, The courier of the band Of coming flowers, what feelings sweet Gush, as the silvery gem we meet A sudden roar-a shade is cast We look up with a start, And sounding like a transient blast, O'erhead the pigeons dart; Scarce their blue glancing shapes the eye Can trace, ere, dotted on the sky, They wheel in distant flight. A chirp and swift the squirrel scours Along the prostrate trunk, and cowers Within its clefts, from sight. Amid the creeping vine, which spreads The bee-swarm murmurs by, and now Glances that sunny spot across, Warmer is each successive sky, More soft the breezes pass, The maple's gems of crimson lie Upon the thick green grass. The dogwood sheds its clusters white, The thresher whistles in the glen, And swamps have voices shrill. AN AMERICAN FOREST SPRING. 273 A simultaneous burst of leaves Has clothed the forest now, A single day's bright sunshine weaves Masses of shade are cast beneath, The flowers are spread in varied wreath, Morn wakes in mist, and twilight gray, THE EDGE OF THE SWAMP. BY W. G. SIMMS. 'Tis a wild spot and hath a gloomy look; The bird sings never merrily in the trees, And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank growth Crowd on the dank, wet earth; and, stretched at length -a fit dweller in such home The cayman Slumbers, half-buried in the sedgy grass, Beside the green ooze where he shelters him. A whooping crane erects his skeleton form, And shrieks in flight. Two summer-ducks aroused To apprehension, as they hear his cry, Dash up from the lagoon, with marvellous haste, The steel-jawed monster, from his grassy bed, Which straight receives him. You behold him now, |