But long before those oaks sublime,
Aspiring, reached their forest prime,
The cheated landlord mouldering lay,
Forgotten with his kindred clay.
Oh ye, whose years, unfolding fair,
Are fresh with youth, and free from care,
Should Vice or Indolence desire
The garden of your soul to hire,
No parley hold, reject their suit,
Nor let one seed the soil pollute!
My child, their first approach beware;
With firmness break the insidious snare,
Lest, as the acorns grew and throve
Into a sun-excluding grove,
Thy sins, a dark, o'ershadowing tree,
Shut out the light of heaven from thee
KIND friends and dear parents, we welcome you here, To our nice pleasant schoolroom, and teachers so dear; We wish but to show you how much we have learned, And how to our lessons our hearts have been turned.
But we hope you'll remember we all are quite young,
And when we have spoken, recited, and sung,
You will pardon our blunders, which, as all are aware,
May even extend to the President's chair.
We seek your approval with hearty good will,
And hope the good lessons our teachers instil
May make us submissive, and gentle and kind,
As well as enlighten and strengthen the mind.
For learning, we know, is more precious than gold,
But the worth of the heart's jewels ne'er can be told;
We'll strive, then, for virtue, truth, honor, and love,
And thus lay up treasures in mansions above
Our ife is a school-time, and till that shall end, With our Father in heaven for teacher and friend, Oh let us perform well each task that is given, Till our time of probation is ended in heaven.
OUR country!'t is a glorious land,
With broad arms stretched from shore to shore ;
The proud Pacific chafes her strand,
She hears the dark Atlantic roar;
And, nurtured on her ample breast,
How many a goodly prospect lies,
In Nature's wildest grandeur dressed,
Enamelled with her loveliest dyes!
Rich prairies, decked with flowers of gold,
Like sunlit oceans roll afar;
Broad lakes her azure heavens behold,
Reflecting clear each trembling star;
And mighty rivers, mountain-born,
Go sweeping onward, dark and deep,
Through forests, where the bounding fawn.
Beneath their sheltering branches leap
And, cradled mid her clustering hills,
Sweet vales in dreamlike beauty hide,
Where love the air with music fills,
And calm content and peace abide;
For plenty here her fulness pours,
In rich profusion, o'er the land,
And, sent to seize her generous store,
There prowls no tyrant's hireling band.
Great God! we thank thee for this home.
This bounteous birth-land of the free;
Where wanderers from afar may come,
And breathe the air of liberty!
Still may her flowers untrampled spring,
Her harvests wave, her cities rise;
And yet, till time shall fold her wing,
Remain earth's loveliest paradise 1
THE NEW ENGLANDER AMONG THE ALPS.
ALPS above Alps around me rise,
Lost in the very depths of air,
And stand between the earth and skies,
In calm, majestic grandeur there.
Stupendous heights, by man untrod!
Types of the mighty power of God!
Here stand ye, as ye stood, when first
Your splendor out of chaos burst;
Here have you reared your giant forms,
From age to age, 'mid desolating storms.
Now glaciers stretch beneath my feet,
Lost in the cloudy air below,
By arrowy hail and tempests beat,
And covered with eternal snow;
The chamois and the mountain deer
Can hardly find a shelter here;
The eagle can scarce build her nest
Upon thy cold and icy breast;
All, all is still. There breathes no sound:
Thy frozen cliffs are wrapt in solitude profound.
Oh, solemn scene! majestic! vast!
Here will you ever stand, as now,
Omnipotence around you cast,
And God's own seal upon your brow!-
Below a thousand torrents, lie;
Above, thy summits pierce the sky,
Sparkling before the astonished sight
Like pyramids of frozen light,
Here, e'en as now, in strength sublime,
The ice-clad cliffs shall stand throughout all coming time.
But while I on these mountains stand,
And while my heart with wonder thrills,
Shall I forget my native land
My own New England hills?
No, no! there's not a spot on earth
Like that blest land that gave me birth;
And even now before my eyes
Her rivers roll-her green hills rise,
Her wild flowers bloom! Thus bright and free,
My own New England home, my native land for me!
OH! where is my hat?—it is taken away,
And my shoestrings are all in a knot!
I can't find a thing where it should be to-day,
Though I've hunted in every spot.
My slate and my pencil nowhere can be found,
Though I placed them as safe as could be;
While my books and my maps are all scattered around,
And hop about just like a flea.
Do, Rachel, just look for
My Virgil is somewhere there, too;
And, sister, brush down these troublesome hairs,-
And, brother, just fasten my shoe.
And, mother, beg father to write an excuse;
But stop-he will only say "No,”
And go on with a smile, and keep reading the news,
While everything bothers me so.
My satchel is heavy and ready to fall;
This old pop-gun is breaking my map;
I'll have nothing to do with the pop-gun or ball,-
There's no playing for such a poor chap!
The town clock will strike in a minute, I fear;
Then away to the foot I must sink:
There, look at my History, tumbled down here!
And my Algebra covered with ink!
I wish I'd not lingered at breakfast the last,
Though the toast and the butter were fine;
I think that our Edward must eat very fast,
To be off when I haven't done mine.
Now, Edward and Henry protest they won't wait,
And beat on the door with their sticks;
I suppose they will say I was dressing too late;
To-morrow I'll be up at six.
ALONE I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand:
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name the year
the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast:
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.
And so, methought, 't will shortly be
With every mark on earth from me;
A wave of dark oblivion's sea
Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been, to be no more,
my day. the name I bore-
To leave nor track nor trace.
And yet, with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in his hands,
I know a lasting record stands,
Inscribed against my name,
Of all this mortal part has wrought;
Of all this thinking soul has thought;
And from these fleeting moments caught
For glory or for shame.
REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE,
NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them, unhappily, wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So the Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning
While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
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