THE HUNTER-A LEGEND.-J. G. WHITTIER.

The hunter went forth with his dog and gun,
In the earliest glow of the golden sun;
The trees of the forest bent over his way,
In the changeful colors of autumn gay;
For a frost had fallen, the night before,
On the quiet greenness which nature wore:-

A bitter frost!-for the night was chill,
And starry and dark, and the wind was still;
And so, when the sun looked out on the hills,
On the stricken woods and the frosted rills,
The unvaried green of the landscape fled,
And a wild, rich robe was given instead.

We know not whither the hunter went,
Or how the last of his days was spent;
For the noon drew nigh-but he came not back,
Weary and faint, from his forest track;

And the wife sat down to her frugal board,
Beside the empty seat of her lord.

And the day passed on, and the sun came down
To the hills of the west like an angel's crown;
The shadows lengthened from wood and hill,
The mist crept up from the meadow-rill,

Till the broad sun sank, and the red light rolled

All over the west like a wave of gold.

Yet he came not back-though the stars gave forth Their wizard light to the silent earth;

And his wife looked out from the lattice dim

In the earnest manner of fear for him;

And his fair-haired child on the door-stone stood

To welcome his father back from the wood!

He came not back-yet they found him soon
In the burning light of the morrow's noon,
In the fixed and visionless sleep of death,
Where the red leaves fall at the soft wind's breath;
And the dog, whose step in the chase was fleet,
Crouched silent and sad at the hunter's feet.

He slept in death;-but his sleep was one
Which his neighbors shuddered to look upon:
For his brow was black, and his open eye

Was red with the sign of agony;-

And they thought, as they gazed on his features grim That an evil deed had been done on him.

They buried him where his fathers laid,
By the mossy mounds in the grave-yard shade;
Yet whispers of doubt passed over the dead,
And beldames muttered while prayers were said;
And the hand of the sexton shook as he pressed
The damp earth down on the hunter's breast.

The seasons passed; and the autumn rain
And the colored forest returned again :
'Twas the very eve that the hunter died:
The winds wailed over the bare hill-side,
And the wreathing limbs of the forest shook
Their red leaves over the swollen brook.

There came a sound on the night-air then,
Like a spirit-shriek to the homes of men,
And louder and shriller it rose again,

Like the fearful cry of the mad with pain;
And trembled alike the timid and brave,

For they knew that it came from the hunter's grave;

And, every year, when autumn flings
Its beautiful robe on created things,
When Piscataqua's tide is turbid with rain,
And Cocheco's woods are yellow again,

That cry is heard from the grave-yard earth,
Like the howl of a demon struggling forth.

LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL.-JOHN RUSKIN.

It has been said by Schiller, in his letters on æsthetic culture, that "the sense of beauty never farthered the performance of a single duty."

Although this gross and inconceivable falsity will hardly be accepted by any one in so many terms, seeing that there are few so utterly lost but that they receive, and know that they receive, at certain moments, strength of some kind, or rebuke from the appealings of outward things; and that it is not possible for a Christian man to walk across so much as a rood of the natural earth, with mind unagitated and rightly poised, without receiving strength and hope from some stone, flower, leaf, nor sound, nor without a sense of a dew falling upon him out of the sky; though I say, this falsity is not wholly and in terms admitted, yet it seems to be partly and practically so in much of the doing and teaching even of holy men, who in the recom

mending of the love of God to us, refer but seldom to those things in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown; though they insist much on his giving of bread, and raiment, and health, (which he gives to all inferior creatures,) they require us not to thank him for that glory of his works which he has permitted us alone to perceive; they tell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send us not, like Isaac, into the fields at even, they dwell on the duty of self-denial, but they exhibit not the duty of delight. Now, there are reasons for this, manifold, in the toil and warfare of an earnest mind, which, in its efforts at the raising of men from utter loss and misery, has often but little time or disposition to take heed of anything more than the bare life, and of those so occupied it is not for us to judge; but I think, that, of the weaknesses, distresses, vanities, schisms, and sins, which often, even in the holiest men, diminish their usefulness and mar their happiness, there would be fewer, if, in their struggle with nature fallen, they sought for more aid from nature undestroyed. It seems to me that the real sources of bluntness in the feelings toward the splendor of the grass and glory of the flower, are less to be found in ardor of occupation, in seriousness of compassion, or heavenliness of desire, than in the turning of the eye at intervals of rest too selfishly within; the want of power to shake off the anxieties of actual and near interest, and to leave results in God's hands; the scorn of all that does not seem immediately apt for our purposes, or open to our understanding, and perhaps something of pride, which desires rather to investigate than to feel. At all events, whatever may be the inability in this present life to mingle the full enjoyment of the Divine works with the full discharge of every practical duty, and confessedly in many cases this must be, let us not attribute the inconsistency to any indignity of the faculty of contemplation, but to the sin and the suffering of the fallen state, and the change of order from the keeping of the garden to the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how far it is right or agreeable with God's will, while men are perishing round about us, while grief, and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and death, and all the powers of the air, are working wildly and evermore, and the cry of blood going up to heaven, that any of us should take hand from the plough; but this we know, that there will come a time when the service of God shall be the beholding of him; and though in these stormy seas, where we are now driven up and down, his Spirit is dimly seen on the face of the waters, and we

are left to cast anchors out of the stern, and wish for the day, that day will come, when with the evangelists on the crystal and stable sea, all the creatures of God shall be full of eyes within, and there shall be "no more curse, but his servants shall serve him, and shall see his face."

THE MERRY MONTH OF JUNE.-JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,

Oh! what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf or blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the egg beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest-
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God so wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifers lowing-
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how:
Every thing is happy now,

Every thing is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue-
'Tis the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache:

The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE-RICHARD H. DANA.

How like eternity doth nature seem

To life of man-that short and fitful dream!
I look around me; nowhere can I trace
Lines of decay that mark our human race.
These are the murmuring waters, these the flowers

I mused o'er in my earlier, better hours.

Like sounds and scents of yesterday they come.
Long years have past since this was last my home!
And I am weak, and toil-worn is my frame;

But all this vale shuts in is still the same:

'Tis I alone am changed; they know me not:

I feel a stranger-or as one forgot.

The breeze that cooled my warm and youthful brow
Breathes the same freshness on its wrinkles now.
The leaves that flung around me sun and shade,
While gazing idly on them, as they played,

Are holding yet their frolic in the air;
The motion, joy, and beauty still are there
But not for me!-I look upon the ground:
Myriads of happy faces throng me round,
Familiar to my eye; yet heart and mind
In vain would now the old communion find.

Ye were as living, conscious beings then,
With whom I talked-but I have talked with men!
With uncheered sorrow, with cold hearts I've met;
Seen honest minds by hardened craft beset;

Seen hope cast down, turn deathly pale its glow;
Seen virtue rare, but more of virtue's show.