How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet! now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on.
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept.

Ye field flowers, the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true;
Yet, wildings of nature, I dote upon you,

For ye waft me to summers of old,

When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight, And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight Like treasures of silver and gold.

I love you for lulling me back into dreams
Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams,
And of birchen glades breathing their balm;
While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote,
And the deep, mellow crush of the wood-pigeon's note
Made music that sweetened the calm.

Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from trifles springs,
Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease,
And few can serve or save, but all may please,
O, let the ungentle spirit learn from hence,
A small unkindness is a great offence.
Large bounties to bestow we wish in vain,
But all may shun the guilt of giving pain.

LIII.

THE PIRATE AND THE ZENAIDA DOVE.
AUDUBON.

THE impressions made on the mind in youth are frequently stronger than those at a more advanced period of life, and are generally retained. My father often told me that when yet a child, my first attempt at drawing was from a preserved specimen of a dove; and he many times repeated to me that birds of this kind are usually remarkable for the gentleness of their disposition, and that the manner in which they show their natural affection, and feed their offspring, was undoubtedly intended, in part, to teach other beings a lesson of connubial and parental attachment. Be this as it may, I have always been fond of doves. The timidity and anxiety which they all manifest on being disturbed during incubation, and the continuance of their mutual attachment for years, are distinguishing traits in their character. Who can approach a sitting dove, hear its notes of remonstrance, or feel the feeble blows of its wings, without being sensible that he is committing a wrong act?

The cooing of the Zenaida dove is so peculiar that one who hears it for the first time naturally stops to ask, “What bird is that?" A man who was once a pirate assured me that several times, while at certain wells dug in the burning, shelly sands of a well-known key,* which must here be nameless, the soft and melancholy cry of the doves awoke in his breast feelings which had long slumbered, melted his heart to repentance, and caused him to linger at the spot in a state of mind which he only who compares the wretchedness of guilt within him with the happiness of former innocence, can truly feel.

He said he never left the place without increased fears of futurity, associated as he was, although I believe by force, with a band of the most desperate villains that ever annoyed the navigation of the Florida coasts.

So deeply moved was he by the notes of any bird, and especially by those of a dove, the only soothing sounds he ever heard during his life of horrors,

that through these plaintive

*Key, a strip, or island, of sand.

notes, and them alone, he was induced to escape from his vessel, abandon his turbulent companions, and return to a family deploring his absence. After paying a parting visit to those wells, and listening once more to the cooings of the Zenaida dove, he poured out his soul in supplications for mercy, and once more became what one has said to be "the noblest work of God" an honest man. His escape was effected amidst difficulties and dangers; but no danger seemed to him compared with the danger of living in violation of human and divine laws, and he dwells in peace in the midst of his friends.

I KNEW a boy whose infant feet had trod
Upon the blossoms of some seven springs;

And when the eighth came round, and called him out
To gambol in the sun, he turned away,

And sought his chamber, to lie down and die:

"Twas night - he summoned his accustomed friends,

And, on this wise, bestowed his last bequest:—

"Mother, I'm dying now

There is deep suffocation in my breast,
As if some heavy hand my bosom pressed;
And on my brow

"I feel the cold sweat stand;

My lips grow dry and tremulous, and my breath
Comes feebly up. O, tell me, is this death?
Mother, your hand

"Here lay it on my wrist,

And place the other thus, beneath my head

And say, sweet mother

Shall I be missed?

say, when I am dead,

"Never beside your knee

Shall I kneel down again at night to pray,
Nor with the morning wake, and sing the lay
You taught to me?

"O, at the time of prayer,

When you look round and see a vacant seat,
You will not wait then for my coming feet —
You'll miss me there.

"Father, I'm going home

To the good home you speak of, that blest land,
Where it is one bright summer always, and
Storms do not come.

"I must be happy then,

From pain and death you say I shall be free-
That sickness never enters there, and we
Shall meet again.

"Brother, the little spot

I used to call my garden, where long hours
We've staid to watch the budding leaves and flowers,
Forget it not.

"Plant there some box or pine Something that lives in winter, and will be A verdant offering to my memory,

And call it mine.

"Sister, my young rose tree,

That all the spring has been my pleasant care,
Just putting forth its leaves so green and fair,
I give to thee.

"And when its roses bloom,

I shall be gone away-my short life done;

But will you not bestow a single one
Upon my tomb?

"Now, mother, sing the tune

You sang last night. I'm weary,

and must sleep.

Who was it called my name? Nay, do not weep;
You'll all come soon!"

Morning spread over earth her rosy wings,
And that meek sufferer, cold and ivory pale,
Lay on his couch asleep. The gentle air
Came through the open window, freighted with
The savory odors of the early spring.

He breathed it not! The laugh of passers by.
Jarred like a discord in some mournful tune,
But did not stir his slumbers

he was dead.

LV.-TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.

No boy or girl needs to be told that lying is an odious vice, which all good men abhor, and which God looks upon with the sternest displeasure. But all of them are not aware that there are many kinds of falsehood, which are not the signs of a depraved nature, and which often flow from thoughtlessness and carelessness, but which are not right and proper. Many men and women, and many boys and girls, who would on no account tell a deliberate falsehood, will say things and do things which are really untrue, and therefore morally wrong. The customs of society tolerate forms of untruth, which no one can yield to without the reproach of a good conscience. Lies are, in common speech, divided into black lies and white lies; the latter being those slight departures from truth which many persons think of little consequence.

A boy who should come late to school because he had