CHILD LIFE.

OLD. winter is a sturdy one,
And lasting stuff he's made of:
His flesh is firm as ironstone,

There's nothing he's afraid of.

He spreads his coat upon the heath,
Nor yet to warm it lingers;

He scouts the thought of aching teeth,
Or chilblains on his fingers.

Of flowers that bloom or birds that sing, Full little cares or knows he ;

He hates the fire, and hates the spring, And all that's warm and cosy.

But when the foxes bark aloud

On frozen lake and river,
When round the fire the people crowd,

And rub their hands and shiver,

When frost is splitting stone and wall,
And trees come crashing after,
That hates he not, he loves it all,
Then bursts he out in laughter.

His home is by the North Pole's strand,
Where earth and sea are frozen ;
His summer-house, we understand,
In Switzerland he's chosen.

Now from the North he's hither hied,
To show his strength and power;
And when he comes we stand aside,
And look at him and cower.

THE CUCKOO.

AIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear :
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant ! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy, wandering through the wood
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, the new voice of spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

What time the pea puts on the bloom
Thou fliest thy vocal vale,

An annual guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!

O could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,

Companions of the spring.

-John Logan.

I COME from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays;
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my bank I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.