OXFORD.

(FROM BAGLEY, AT 8 A.M.)

HE flood is round thee, but thy towers as yet
Are safe, and clear as by a summer's sea

Pierce the calm morning mist, serene and free,
To point in silence heavenward. There are met
Thy foster-children ;-there in order set

Their nursing-fathers, sworn to Heaven and thee
(An oath renewed this hour on bended knee,)
Ne'er to betray their Mother nor forget.-
Lo! on the top of each aerial spire

What seems a star by day, so high and bright,

It quivers from afar in golden light:

But 'tis a form of earth, though touched with fire
Celestial, raised in other days to tell

How, when they tired of prayer, Apostles fell.

AT HOOKER'S TOMB.

HE grey-eyed Morn was saddened with a shower,
A silent shower, that trickled down so still
Scarce drooped beneath its weight the tenderest
flower,

Scarce could you trace it on the twinkling rill,
Or moss-stone bathed in dew. It was an hour
Most meet for prayer beside thy lowly grave,

Most for thanksgiving meet, that Heaven such power
To thy serene and humble spirit gave.

'Who sow good seed with tears shall reap in joy.’

So thought I as I watched the gracious rain,
And deemed it like that silent sad employ

Whence sprung thy glory's harvest, to remain
For ever. God hath sworn to lift on high
Who sinks himself by true humility.

THE THRUSH'S NEST.

ITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a molehill large and round,

I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and, often an intruding guest,

I watched her secret toils from day to day,-
How true she warped the moss to form a nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay;
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted-over, shells of greeny blue;
And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours,
A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.

FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT.

HITHER, oh! whither wilt thou wing thy way?
What solemn region first upon thy sight

Shall break, unveiled for terror or delight?

What hosts, magnificent in dread array,

My spirit! when thy prison-house of clay,

After long strife is rent? Fond, fruitless quest !

The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest,
Sees but a few green branches o'er him play,
And through their parting leaves, by fits revealed,
A glimpse of summer sky; nor knows the field
Wherein his dormant powers must yet be tried.
Thou art that bird !—of what beyond thee lies
Far in the untracked immeasurable skies,

Knowing but this—that thou shalt find thy Guide.

THE HUMAN SEASONS.

OUR Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man :

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span :

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness-to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter, too, of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.