THE WORLD IN THE OPEN AIR.

COME, while in freshness and dew it lies,

To the world that is under the free, blue skies!
Leave ye man's home, and forget his care
There breathes no sigh on the day-spring's air.

Come to the woods, in whose mossy dells
A light all made for the poet dwells;
A light, colour'd softly by tender leaves,
Whence the primrose a mellower glow receives.

The stock-dove is there in the beechen tree,
And the lulling tone of the honey-bee;

And the voice of cool waters 'midst feathery fern,
Shedding sweet sounds from some hidden urn.

There is life, there is youth, there is tameless mirth, Where the streams, with the lilies they wear, have birth;

There is peace where the alders are whispering low:
Come from man's dwellings with all their woe!

Yes! we will come- we will leave behind
The homes and the sorrows of human kind:
It is well to rove where the river leads
Its bright blue vein along sunny meads:

It is well through the rich wild woods to go,
And to pierce the haunts of the fawn and doe;
And to hear the gushing of gentle springs,

Where the heart has been fretted by worldly stings;

And to watch the colours that flit and pass,
With insect-wings, through the wavy grass;
And the silvery gleams o'er the ash-tree's bark,
Borne in with a breeze through the foliage dark.

Joyous and far shall our wanderings be,
As the flight of birds o'er the glittering sea;
To the woods, to the dingles where violets blow,
We will bear no memory of earthly woe.

But if, by the forest-brook, we meet

A line like the pathway of former feet;-
If, 'midst the hills, in some lonely spot,
We reach the grey ruins of tower or cot;-

If the cell, where a hermit of old hath pray'd,
Lift
its cross through the solemn shade;
up
Or if some nook, where the wild-flowers wave,
Bear token sad of a mortal grave,

Doubt not but there will our steps be stay'd,
There our quick spirits awhile delay'd;
There will thought fix our impatient eyes,
And win back our hearts to their sympathies.

For what, though the mountains and skies be fair,
Steep'd in soft hues of the Summer-air,-

'Tis the soul of man, by its hopes and dreams,
That lights up all nature with living gleams.

Where it hath suffer'd and nobly striven,
Where it hath pour'd forth its vows to heaven;
Where to repose it hath brightly pass'd,
O'er this green earth there is glory cast.

And by that soul, 'midst groves and rills,
And flocks that feed on a thousand hills,
Birds of the forest, and flowers of the sod,
We, only we, may be link'd to God!

KINDRED HEARTS.

Он! ask not, hope thou not too much
Of sympathy below;

Few are the hearts whence one same touch
Bids the sweet fountains flow:
Few-and by still conflicting powers

Forbidden here to meet

Such ties would make this life of ours
Too fair for aught so fleet.

It may be, that thy brother's eye
Sees not as thine, which turns
In such deep reverence to the sky,
Where the rich sunset burns:
It may be, that the breath of spring,
Born amidst violets lone,

A rapture o'er thy soul can bring-
A dream, to him unknown.

The tune that speaks of other times-
A sorrowful delight!

The melody of distant chimes,

The sound of waves by night,

The wind that, with so many a tone,
Some chord within can thrill,—

These may have language all thine own,
To him a mystery still.

Yet scorn thou not, for this, the true
And steadfast love of years;

The kindly, that from childhood grew,
The faithful to thy tears!

If there be one that o'er the dead
Hath in thy grief borne part,

And watch'd through sickness by thy bed,-
Call his a kindred heart!

But for those bonds all perfect made,
Wherein bright spirits blend,

Like sister flowers of one sweet shade,
With the same breeze that bend,
For that full bliss of thought allied,
Never to mortals given,-

Oh lay thy lovely dreams aside,
Or lift them unto Heaven

THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

IN sunset's light, o'er Afric thrown,
A wanderer proudly stood

Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,
Of Egypt's awful flood;

The cradle of that mighty birth,

So long a hidden thing to earth!

He heard its life's first murmuring sound,

A low mysterious tone;

A music sought, but never found
By kings and warriors gone;

He listen'd-and his heart beat high-
That was the song of victory!

The rapture of a conqueror's mood
Rush'd burning through his frame,—
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame;

Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile-
Round those far fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars: -across his soul
There swept a sudden change;
E'en at the pilgrim's glorious goal
A shadow dark and strange

Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O'er triumph's hour-and is this all?1

1A remarkable description of feelings thus fluctuating from triumph to despondency, is given in Bruce's Abyssinian Travels. The buoyant exultation of his spirits on arriving at the source of the Nile, was almost immediately succeeded by a gloom, which he thus portrays:-"I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began, in my sorrow, to treat the enquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy."