I own you 're a very ancient race,

TO A MOSQUITO.

And Greece and Babylon were amid;

You have tenanted many a royal dome,

And dwelt in the oldest pyramid;

In the ark was your floodless bed;
On the moonless night of Marathon
You crawled o'er the mighty dead;

But still, though I reverence your ancestries,
I don't see why you should nibble my peas.

The meadows are yours, the hedgerow and brook,
You may bathe in their dews at morn;
By the aged sea you may sound your shells,
On the mountains erect your horn;

The fruits and the flowers are your rightful dowers,
Then why in the name of wonder
Should my six pea-rows be the only cause
To excite your midnight plunder ?

I have never disturbed your slender shells
You have hung round my aged walk;
And each might have sat, till he died in his fat,
Beneath his own cabbage-stalk :

In pitiless ears, full many a plaintive thing, And tell'st how little our large veins should bleed, Would we but yield them freely in thy need;

I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,
Has not the honor of so proud a birth;
Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, broad and

green,

The offspring of the gods, though born on earth.

At length thy pinions fluttered in Broadway, Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissed

By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist!

And, fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin, Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin.

And think of your poor little snails at home,

Now orphans or emigrants all.

Utensils domestic and civil and social

I give you an evening to pack up;

What, do I hear thy slender voice complain? Thou wailest, when I talk of beauty's light, As if it brought the memory of pain: Thou art a wayward being, —well, come near, And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear.

THE frugal snail, with forecast of repose,
Carries his house with him where'er he goes;
Peeps out, and if there comes a shower of rain,
Retreats to his small domicile again.
Touch but a tip of him, a horn, - 't is well, -
He curls up in his sanctuary shell.

He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.
Himself he boards and lodges; both invites
And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights.
He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure
Chattels; himself is his own furniture,
And his sole riches. Wheresoe'er he roam,
Knock when you will, he's sure to be at
home.

CHARLES LAMB.

Rouge makes

thee sick, And China bloom at best is sorry food; And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick, Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood"? Go, 't was a just reward that met thy crime, But shun the sacrilege another time.

That bloom was made to look at, not to touch, To worship, not approach, that radiant white; And well might sudden vengeance light on such As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite. Thou should'st have gazed at distance, and admired,

Murmured thy adoration, and retired.

Thou 'rt welcome to the town; but why come here
To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee?
Alas! the little blood I have is dear,

And thin will be the banquet drawn from me. Look round, the pale-eyed sisters, in my cell, Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, dwell.

Try some plump alderman: and suck the blood
Enriched with generous wine, and costly meat;
In well-filled skins, soft as thy native mud,
Fix thy light pump, and raise thy freckled feet.

Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls,
The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls.
There corks are drawn, and the red vintage flows,
To fill the swelling veins for thee; and now
The ruddy cheek, and now the ruddier nose,
Shall tempt thee as thou flittest round the brow;
And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings,
No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

GOD EVERYWHERE IN NATURE. How desolate were nature, and how void Of every charm, how like a naked waste Of Africa, were not a present God Beheld employing, in its various scenes, His active might to animate and adorn! What life and beauty, when, in all that breathes, Or moves, or grows, his hand is viewed at work! When it is viewed unfolding every bud,

Each blossom tingeing, shaping every leaf,
Wafting each cloud that passes o'er the sky,
Rolling each billow, moving every wing
That fans the air, and every warbling throat
Heard in the tuneful woodlands! In the least
As well as in the greatest of his works
Is ever manifest his presence kind;
As well in swarms of glittering insects, seen
Quick to and fro within a foot of air,
Dancing a merry hour, then seen no more,
As in the systems of resplendent worlds,
Through time revolving in unbounded space.
His eye, while comprehending in one view
The whole creation, fixes full on me ;
As on me shines the sun with his full blaze,
While o'er the hemisphere he spreads the same,
His hand, while holding oceans in its palm,
And compassing the skies, surrounds my life,
Guards the poor rushlight from the blast of
death.

CARLOS WILCOX.