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BUT where to find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know? The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And his long nights of revelry and ease: The naked negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country, ever is at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share, Though, patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind; As different good, by art or nature given, To different nations makes their blessing even.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land;

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,

What gladsome looks of household love
.Meet in the ruddy light.

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childish tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours!

Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn;

All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

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FILIAL AND FRATERNAL LOVE.

FILIAL LOVE.

*

FROM CHILDE HAROLD."

THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight, Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so; I see them full and plain, An old man and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar: but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,
Where on the heart and from the heart we took
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,
Blest into mother, in the innocent look,
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves-
What may the fruit be yet? I know not - Cain
was Eve's.

But here youth offers to old age the food,
The milk of his own gift: it is her sire
To whom she renders back the debt of blood
Born with her birth. No! he shall not expire
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
Of health and holy feeling can provide
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises
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Than Egypt's river ;- from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

The starry fable of the milky-way
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
Where sparkle distant worlds :- 0, holiest

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Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same,

A loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny, A world to roam through, and a home with thee. The first were nothing, had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness; But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less. A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore, He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,

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I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt,
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love, but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation ; — to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire. Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

O that thou wert but with me! - but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show ;
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my altered eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair? but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore;
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resigned forever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply, It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister, till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not; for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest,
even the only paths for me,
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be ;
The passions which have torn me would have slept:
I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what had I to do?
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame!

And yet they

And made m

came unsought, and with me grew,

me all which they can make,-a name.

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BERTHA IN THE LANE. PUT the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done! The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary! I have sewn, Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.

Sister, help me to the bed,

And stand near me, dearest-sweet!
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No one standeth in the street!
By God's love I go to meet,

Love I thee with love complete.

Lean thy face down! drop it in

These two hands, that I may hold "Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. "T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth

Than mine were in my first youth!

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At the sight of the great sky;
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory's golden flood,
Audibly did bud, - and bud!

Through the winding hedge-rows green,
How we wandered, I and you,

With the bowery tops shut in,

And the gates that showed the view;
How we talked there! thrushes soft
Sang our pauses out, or oft

Bleatings took them from the croft.
Till the pleasure, grown too strong,
Left me muter evermore;
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before;
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.

I sat down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain;
And I blessed you, full and free,
With a smile stooped tenderly
O'er the May-flowers on my knee.
But the sound grew into word

As the speakers drew more near
Sweet, forgive me that I heard
What you wished me not to hear.
Do not weep so, do not shake—
O, I heard thee, Bertha, make

Good true answers for my sake.

Yes, and he too! let him stand

In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand

He had claimed with hasty claim !
That was wrong perhaps, but then
Such things be and will, again!
Women cannot judge for men.

Had he seen thee, when he swore

He would love but me alone?
Thou wert absent, sent before
To our kin in Sidmouth town.
When he saw thee, who art best
Past compare, and loveliest,
He but judged thee as the rest.

Could we blame him with grave words,
Thou and I, dear, if we might ?
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds
Flying straightway to the light;
Mine are older. - Hush!-look ont
Up the street! Is none without?
How the poplar swings about!

And that hour- beneath the beach-
When I listened in a dream,
And he said, in his deep speech,
That he owed me all esteem ---
Each word swam in on my brain
With a dim, dilating pain,

Till it burst with that last strain.

I fell flooded with a dark,

In the silence of a swoon; When I rose, still, cold, and stark, There was night, I saw the moon; And the stars, each in its place, And the May-blooms on the grass, Seemed to wonder what I was.

And I walked as if apart

From myself when I could stand,
And I pitied my own heart,

As if I held it in my hand
Somewhat coldly, with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a "Poor thing" negligence.

And I answered coldly too,

When you met me at the door;
And I only heard the dew

Dripping from me to the floor;
And the flowers I bade you see
Were too withered for the bee, -
As my life, henceforth, for me.

Do not weep so
- dear heart-warm!
It was best as it befell!

If I say he did, me harm,

I speak wild, I am not well.
All his words were kind and good,
He esteemed me! Only blood
Runs so faint in womanhood.

Then I always was too grave,

Liked the saddest ballads sung, With that look, besides, we have In our faces who die young. I had died, dear, all the same, Life's long, joyous, jostling game Is too loud for my meek shame.

We are so unlike each other,

Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother, But for mutual tenderness. Thou art rose-lined from the cold, And meant, verily, to hold Life's pure pleasures manifold.

I am pale as crocus grows

Close beside a rose-tree's root! Whosoe'er would reach the rose, Treads the crocus underfoot;

I like May-bloom on thorn-tree, Thou like merry summer-bee ! Fit, that I be plucked for thee.

Yet who plucks me? no one mourns;
I have lived my season out,

And now die of my own thorns,
Which I could not live without.
Sweet, be merry! How the light
Comes and goes! If it be night,
Keep the candles in my sight.

Are there footsteps at the door?

Look out quickly. Yea, or nay? Some one might be waiting for Some last word that I might say. Nay? So best! - So angels would Stand off clear from deathly road, Not to cross the sight of God.

Colder grow my hands and feet,

When I wear the shroud I made,
Let the folds lie straight and neat,
And the rosemary be spread,
That if any friend should come,
(To see thee, sweet!) all the room
May be lifted out of gloom.

And, dear Bertha, let me keep
On my hand this little ring,
Which at nights, when others sleep,
I can still see glittering.

Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave, where it will light
All the dark up, day and night.

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