"Cold blows the blast across the moor,
The fleet drives hissing in the wind;
Yon toilsome mountain lies before,
A dreary treeless waste behind.

My eyes are weak, and dim with age,
No road, no path, can I descry,
And these poor rags ill stand the rage
Of such a keen inclement sky.

So faint I am-these tottering feet
No more my palsied frame can bear;
My freezing heart forgets to beat,
And drifting snows my tomb prepare.
Open your hospitable door,

And shield me from the biting blast:
Cold, cold it blows across the moor,
The weary moor that I have pass'd!"

With hasty step the farmer ran,
And close beside the fire they place
The
poor half frozen beggar man,
With shaking limbs and blue-pale face.

The little children flocking came
And chafed his frozen hands in theirs,
And busily the good old dame

A comfortable mess prepares.

Their kindness cheered his drooping soul,
And slowly down his wrinkled cheek
The big round tears were seen to roll,
And told the thanks he could not speak.

The children too began to sigh,
And all their merry chat was o'er;
And yet they felt, they knew not why,
More glad than they had done before.

Lucy Aikin.

INDIA.

Where sacred Ganges pours along the plain,
And Indus rolls to swell the eastern main,
What awful scenes the curious mind delight,
What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight!
There giant palms lift high their tufted heads,
The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads;
Wild in the woods the active monkey springs,
The chattering parrot claps his painted wings;
'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake,
The tiger couches in the tangled brake;
The spotted axis bounds in fear away,
The leopard darts on his defenceless prey,
'Mid reedy pools and ancient forests rude,
Cool, peaceful haunts of awful solitude!
The huge rhinoceros rends the crashing boughs,
And stately elephants untroubled browse.
Two tyrant seasons rule the wide domain,

Scorch with dry heat, or drench with floods of rain:
Now feverish herds rush madding o'er the plains,
And cool in shady streams their throbbing veins,
The birds drop lifeless from the silent spray,
And nature faints beneath the fiery day;
Then bursts the deluge on the sinking shore,
And teeming Plenty empties all her store.

THE SWALLOW.

Swallow ! that on rapid wing

Sweep'st along in sportive ring,

Lucy Aikin

Now here, now there, now low, now high,
Chasing keen the painted fly,-

Could I skim away with thee

Over land and over sea,

What streams would flow, what cities rise,

What landscapes dance before mine eyes!
First from England's southern shore
'Cross the channel we would soar,

And our vent'rous course advance
To the lively plains of France;
Sport among the feather'd choir
On the verdant banks of Loire,
Skim Garonne's majestic tide,
Where Bordeaux adorns his side;
Cross the towering Pyrenees,

'Mid orange groves and myrtle trees;
Entering then the wild domain

Where wolves prowl round the flocks of Spain,
Where silk-worms spin, and olives grow,
And mules plod surely on and slow.
Steering then for many a day
Far to south our course away,
From Gibraltar's rocky steep,
Dashing o'er the foaming deep,
On sultry Afric's fruitful shore
We'd rest at length, our journey o'er,
Till vernal gales should gently play
To waft us on our homeward way.

Lucy Aikin.

THE TRAVELLER'S RETURN.

Sweet to the morning traveller
The sky-lark's earliest song,
Whose twinkling wings are seen at fits
The dewy lights among.

And cheering to the traveller

The gales that round him play,

When faint and wearily he drags

Along his noontide way.

And when beneath th' unclouded sun

Full wearily toils he,

The flowing water makes to him

Most pleasant melody.

And when the evening light decays,

And all is calm around,

There is sweet music to his ear

In the distant sheep-bell's sound.

And sweet the neighbouring church's bell
That marks his journey's bourn;

But sweeter is the voice of love
That welcomes his return!

Anthology.

THE PIEDMONTESE AND HIS MARMOT.

From my dear native moorlands, for many a day
Thro' fields and thro' cities I've wander'd away.
Tho' I merrily sing, yet forlorn is my lot;
I'm a poor Piedmontese, and I show a marmot.
This pretty marmot in a mountain's steep side
Made a burrow, himself and his young ones to hide.
The bottom they covered with moss and with hay,
And stopp'd up the entrance, and snugly they lay.
They carelessly slept till the cold winter blast,
And the hail, and the deep drifting snow-shower was
past.

But the warbling of April awoke them again
To crop the young plants, and to frisk on the plain.
Then I caught this poor fellow, and taught him to dance,
And we liv'd by his tricks as we rambled through France,
But he droops and grows drowsy as onward we roam,
And he and his master both pine for their home.
Let your charity then hasten back to his cot
poor Piedmotese with his harmless marmot.
Lucy Aikin.

The

The marmot is a little animal somewhat like a squirrel; he is taken in Alpine countries, is susceptible of education, and may be taught tricks, which are exhibited for the emolument of some poor fellow who carries him about through European cities. The marmot is a torpid animal-falling into a long sleep on the approach of win

ter.

THE ORANGE TREE.

In the soft bosom of Campania's vale,
When now the wintry tempests all are fled,
And genial summer breathes her gentle gale,
The verdant orange lifts its beauteous head ;
From every branch the balmy flow'rets rise,
On every bough the golden fruits are seen;
With odours sweet it fills the smiling skies:
But, in the midst of all its blooming pride,
A sudden blast from Apenninus blows,

Cold with perpetual snows;

393

The tender blighted plant shrinks up its leaves, and

dies.

Lord Lyttleton.

GENERATIONS OF MAN.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground.
Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these when those are pass'd dway.

Pope's Homer.

TO A BEE.

Thou wert out betimes, thou busy busy Bee!
When around I took my early way,
Before the cow from her resting-place
Had risen up, and left her trace

On the meadow with dew so gray,

I saw thee, thou busy busy Bee?

Thou wert alive, thou busy busy Bee!

When the crowd in their sleep were dead,

Thou wert abroad in the freshest hour,

When the sweetest odour comes from the flower.
Man will not learn to leave his lifeless bed,
And be wise and copy thee, thou busy busy Bee!