How mildly on the wandering cloud
The sunset beam is cast!

'Tis like the memory left behind

When loved ones breathe their last.

And now, above the dews of night,
The yellow star appears;
So faith springs in the heart of those
Whose eyes are bathed in tears.

But soon the morning's happier light
Its glory shall restore,

And eyelids that are sealed in death
Shall wake to close no more.

Lines on revisiting the Country.-BRYANT.

I STAND upon my native hills again,

Broad, round, and green, that, in the southern sky, With garniture of waving grass and grain,

Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;

While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever-restless steps of one, who now
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year:
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved, and spread in verdure and in light;

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains; to behold,
With deep affection, the pure, ample sky,
And clouds along the blue abysses rolled;
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.

Here I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervors beat,

And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear

The song of bird and sound of running stream,
Have come awhile to wander and to dream.

Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun: thou canst not wake,
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen;
The maize leaf and the maple bough but take

From thy fierce heats a deeper, glossier green;
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.
The mountain wind-most spiritual thing of all
The wide earth knows-when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,

He seems the breath of a celestial clime,-
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.

The Spirit's Song of Consolation.*-F. W P. GREENWOOD.

DEAR parents, grieve no more for me;

My parents, grieve no more;

Believe that I am happier far

Than even with you before.

I've left a world where wo and sin
Swell onwards as a river,

And gained a world where I shall rest
In peace and joy forever.

Our Father bade me come to him,
He gently bade me come,

And he has made his heavenly house
My dwelling place and home.
On that best day of all the seven,
Which saw the Savior rise,

I heard the voice you could not hear,
Which called me to the skies.

I saw, too, what you could not see,
Two beauteous angels stand;

They smiling stood, and looked at me,

And beckoned with their hand;

*Supposed to be addressed by the departed spirit of a boy to his parents, who had lost two other children before him.

They said they were my sisters dear,
And they were sent to bear
My spirit to their blessed abode,
To live forever there.

Then think not of the mournful time
When I resigned my breath,
Nor of the place where I was laid,
The gloomy house of death;
But think of that high world, where I
No more shall suffer pain,
And of the time when all of us
In heaven shall meet again.

Colonization of Africa.-BRAINARD.

ALL sights are fair to the recovered blind;
All sounds are music to the deaf restored;
The lame, made whole, leaps like the sporting hind;
And the sad, bowed-down sinner, with his load

Of shame and sorrow, when he cuts the cord,
And drops the pack it bound, is free again

In the light yoke and burden of his Lord.

Thus, with the birthright of his fellow man,
Sees, hears and feels at once the righted African.

'Tis somewhat like the burst from death to life;
From the grave's cerements to the robes of heaven;
From Sin's dominion, and from Passion's strife,

To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven!

When all the bonds of death and hell are riven,

And mortals put on immortality;

When fear, and care, and grief, away are driven,

And Mercy's hand has turned the golden key,

And Mercy's voice has said, " Rejoice-thy soul is free!"

Fable of the Wood Rose and the Laurel.-
MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY.

In these deep shades a floweret blows,
Whose leaves a thousand sweets disclose;

With modest air it hides its charms,
And every breeze its leaves alarms;
Turns on the ground its bashful eyes,
And oft unknown, neglected, dies.
This flower, as late I careless strayed,
I saw in all its charms arrayed.
Fast by the spot where low it grew,
A proud and flaunting Wood Rose blew.
With haughty air her head she raised,
And on the beauteous plant she gazed.
While struggling passion swelled her breast,
She thus her kindling rage expressed:

"Thou worthless flower,

Go leave my bower,

And hide in humbler scenes thy head:
How dost thou dare,
Where roses are,
Thy scents to shed?

Go, leave my bower, and live unknown;
I'll rule the field of flowers alone."

...." And dost thou think"-the Laurel cried, And raised its head with modest pride, While on its little trembling tongue

A drop of dew incumbent hung

"And dost thou think I'll leave this bower, The seat of many a friendly flower,

The scene where first I grew?

Thy haughty reign will soon be o'er,
And thy frail form will bloom no more;
My flower will perish too.

But know, proud rose,

When winter's snows

Shall fall where once thy beauties stood,

My pointed leaf of shining green
Will still amid the gloom be seen,
To cheer the leafless wood."

"Presuming fool!" the Wood Rose cried,
And strove in vain her shame to hide;

But, ah! no more the flower could say; For, while she spoke, a transient breeze

Came rustling through the neighboring trees,
And bore her boasted charms away.

And such, said I, is Beauty's power!
Like thee she falls, poor trifling flower;
And, if she lives her little day,
Life's winter comes with rapid pace,
And robs her form of every grace,
And steals her bloom away.

But in thy form, thou Laurel green,
Fair Virtue's semblance soon is seen.

In life she cheers each different stage,
Spring's transient reign, and Summer's glow,
And Autumn mild, advancing slow,

And lights the eye of age.

A Castle in the Air.*-PROFESSOR FRISBIE.

I'LL tell you, friend, what sort of wife,
Whene'er I scan this scene of life,
Inspires my waking schemes,
And when I sleep, with form so light,
Dances before my ravished sight,
In sweet aerial dreams.

The rose its blushes need not lend,
Nor yet the lily with them blend,
To captivate my eyes.

Give me a cheek the heart obeys,
And, sweetly mutable, displays

Its feelings as they rise;

Features, where pensive, more than gay,
Save when a rising smile doth play,

The sober thought you see;

Eyes that all soft and tender seem,

And kind affections round them beam,

But most of all on me;

This is a beautiful domestic picture. Without being an imitation, it reminds us of Cotton's Fireside.-ED.