"In the cottage yonder I was born;

Long my happy home, that humble dwelling; There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn; There the spring with limpid nectar swelling; Ah, forlorn!

In the cottage yonder I was born.

"Those two gateway sycamores you see
Then were planted just so far asunder
That long well-pole from the path to free,
And the wagon to pass safely under;
Ninety-three!

Those two gateway sycamores you see.

"There's the orchard where we used to climb
When my mates and I were boys together,
Thinking nothing of the flight of time,
Fearing naught but work and rainy weather;
Past its prime !

There's the orchard where we used to climb.

"There the rude, three-cornered chestnut-rails, Round the pasture where the flocks were grazing, Where, so sly, I used to watch for quails

In the crops of buckwheat we were raising; Traps and trails!

There the rude, three-cornered chestnut-rails.

"There's the mill that ground our yellow grain; Pond and river still serenely flowing;

Cot there nestling in the shaded lane,
Where the lily of my heart was blowing.
Mary Jane!

There's the mill that ground our yellow grain.

"There's the gate on which I used to swing, Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red stable; But alas! no more the morn shall bring That dear group around my father's table; Taken wing! There's the gate on which I used to swing. "I am fleeing, all I loved have fled.

Yon green meadow was our place for playing; That old tree can tell of sweet things said When around it Jane and I were straying; She is dead!

I am fleeing, all I loved have fled.

"Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky,
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,

Points me to seven that are now in glory
There on high!

Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky.

"Oft the aisle of that old church we trod,
Guided thither by an angel mother;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod;
Sire and sisters, and my little brother,
Gone to God!

Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
"There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways;
Bless the holy lesson! - but, ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise,

Those sweet voices silent now forever!
Peaceful days!

There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.

"There my Mary blest me with her hand When our souls drank in the nuptial blessing, Ere she hastened to the spirit-land,

Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing;
Broken band!

There my Mary blest me with her hand.

"I have come to see that grave once more, And the sacred place where we delighted, Where we worshipped, in the days of yore, Ere the garden of my heart was blighted To the core !

I have come to see that grave once more.

"Angel," said he sadly, "I am old;

Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow, Now, why I sit here thou hast been told." In his eye another pearl of sorrow, Down it rolled!

" Angel," said he sadly, "I am old." By the wayside, on a mossy stone,

Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing; Still I marked him sitting there alone, All the landscape, like a page, perusing; Poor, unknown!

By the wayside, on a mossy stone.

RALPH HOYT.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies: All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Severed, — were it severed only By an idle thought of strife, Such as time may knit together; Not the broken chord of life!

O, I fling my spirit backward, And I pass o'er years of pain; All I loved is rising round me, All the lost returns again.

Brighter, fairer far than living, With no trace of woe or pain, Robed in everlasting beauty, Shall I see thee once again,

By the light that never fadeth, Underneath eternal skies, When the dawn of resurrection Breaks o'er deathless Paradise.

WILLIAM EDMONSTOWNE AYTOUNE.

AFAR IN THE DESERT.

AFAR in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the present, I cling to the past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead,
Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon;
Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon;
Attachments by fate or falsehood reft;
Companions of early days lost or left,
And my native land, whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame;

The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime;

All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time When the feelings were young, and the world

fear,

The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear, And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,

Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy; When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,

And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,
O, then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the desert alone to ride!

There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle's speed,
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand, -
The only law of the Desert Land!

Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
Away, away from the dwellings of men,

By the wild deer's haunt, by the buffalo's glen;
By valleys remote where the oribi plays,
Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest

graze,

And the kudu and eland unhunted recline

Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot;
And the bitter-melon, for food and drink,
Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink;
A region of drought, where no river glides,
Nor rippling brook with osiered sides;
Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount,
Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,
Appears, to refresh the aching eye;
But the barren earth and the burning sky,
And the blank horizon, round and round,
Spread, void of living sight or sound.
And here, while the night-winds round me sigh,
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit apart by the desert stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,

"A still small voice" comes through the wild (Like a father consoling his fretful child), Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear, Saying, - Man is distant, but God is near!

THOMAS PRINGLE.

vine;

Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood, And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood, And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

EVE'S LAMENT.

O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry
Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively;
And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh
Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,
With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;
And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,
Hicing away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view
In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
Away, away, in the wilderness vast

Where the white man's foot hath never passed,

And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan,

A region of emptiness, howling and drear,

Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount!
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from
thee

How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

THE DEPARTURE FROM PARADISE.

ADAM TO MICHAEL.

GENTLY hast thou told

fear;

Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,

With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;

Departure from this happy place, our sweet Recess, and only consolation left,

| Familiar to our eyes, all places else