Birthday ornament of Spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling;-
Coming when no flow'rets dare
Trust the cruel outer air;
When the royal king-cup bold
Dares not don his coat of gold;
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps his silver for the May;
Coming when no flow'rets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood,
Early violets, blue and white,
Dying for their love of light.
Almond blossom, sent to teach us

That the Spring-days soon will reach us,
Lest, with longing over-tried,

We die as the violets died-
Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson broidery,
Long before a leaf of green
On the bravest bough is seen;

Ah! when winter winds are swinging

All thy red bells into ringing,

With a bee in every bell,

Almond bloom, we greet thee well.

How daintily he dilates upon the charm of Woman's gentle

voice :

Not in the swaying of the summer trees,

When evening breezes sing their vesper hymn-
Not in the minstrel's mighty symphonies,

Nor ripples breaking on the river's brim,

Is earth's best music; these may have awhile

High thoughts in happy hearts, and carking cares beguile :

But even as the swallow's silken wings,
Skimming the waters of the sleeping lake,
Stir the still silver with a hundred rings,

So doth one sound the sleeping spirit wake
To brave the danger, and to bear the harm-
A low and gentle voice-dear Woman's chiefest charm.

An excellent thing it is! and ever lent

To truth, and love, and meekness; they who own
This gift, by the All-gracious Giver sent,

Ever by quiet step and smile are known:

By kind eyes that have wept, hearts that have sorrowed-
By patience never tired, from their own trials borrowed.

An excellent thing it is-when first in gladness
A mother looks into her infant's eyes,-
Smiles to its smiles, and saddens to its sadness-

Pales at its paleness, sorrows at its cries;

Its food and sleep, and smiles and little joys—

All these come ever blent with one low, gentle voice.

The following lines, simple and homely, yet touchingly beautiful, are by CHARLOTTE YOUNG:

How like a tender mother, with loving thoughts beguiled,
Fond Nature seems to lull to rest each faint and weary child!
Drawing the curtain tenderly, affectionate and mild.

Hark to the gentle lullaby, that through the trees is creeping!
Those sleepy trees that nod their heads, ere the moon as yet comes

peeping,

Like a tender nurse, to see if all her little ones are sleeping.

One little fluttering bird, like a child in a dream of pain,

Has chirped and started up, then nestled down again.

Oh, a child and a bird, as they sink to rest, are as like as any twain.

ALFRED B. STREET's picturesque sketches of American Forest

Scenery are excellent. It is evident that he is a lover of the meadows, woods, and streams, as well as of the wildest and most romantic of Nature's solitudes. Shall we roam with him through one of our primeval wildernesses :

A lovely sky, a cloudless sun,

A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers,
O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won,
To the cool forest's shadowy bowers:
One of the paths all round that wind,
Traced by the browsing herds I choose,
And sights and sounds of human-kind
In Nature's lone recesses lose :

The beech displays its marbled bark,

The spruce its green tent stretches wide,
While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark,
The maple's scalloped dome beside:
All weave on high a verdant roof,
That keeps the very sun aloof,

Making a twilight soft and green,

Within the columned vaulted scene.

Sweet forest-odours have their birth

From the clothed boughs and teeming earth;

Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead,

Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern,
With many a wild-flower's fancy urn,

A thick, elastic carpet spread;
Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk,
Resolving into soil, is sunk;

There, wrenched but lately from its throne,
By some fierce whirlwind circling past,
Its huge roots massed with earth and stone,
One of the woodland kings is cast.

The little milk-snake glides away,
The brindled marmot dives from day :
And now, between the boughs, a space
Of the blue, laughing sky I trace:

On each side shrinks the bowery shade;

Before me spreads an emerald glade;
The sunshine steeps its grass
and moss,
That couch my footsteps as I cross :
Merrily hums the tawny bee,
The glittering humming-bird I see;
Floats the bright butterfly along,
The insect choir is loud in song;
A spot of light and life it seems,
A fairy haunt for fancy dreams.
Here stretched, the pleasant turf I press,
In luxury of idleness;

Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky,
Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye;
While murmuring grass, and waving trees,
Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze,
And water-tones that tinkle near,
Blend their sweet music to my ear;
And by the changing shades alone
The passage of the hours is known.

These fine lines, to The Nightingale, are by HARTLEY COLE

RIDGE

'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, that bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark in the twinkling dark to the soothing song of

sorrow.

Oh, nightingale, what does she ail? And is she sad or jolly?
For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth so like to melancholy.
The merry lark, he soars on high, no worldly thought o'ertakes him;