I had been sitting up some nights, And my tired mind felt weak and blank ; Silence was speaking at my side I said, "Full knowledge does not grieve: Twelve struck. That sound, which all the Like water that a pebble stirs. Our mother rose from where she sat. So, as said angels, she did say; She stood a moment with her hands Almost unwittingly, my mind Just then in the room over us There was a pushing back of chairs So late, now heard the bour, and rose. years Anxious, with softly stepping haste, She stoop'd an instant, calm, and turn'd; For my part, I but hid my face, And held my breath, and spake no word: Our mother bow'd herself and wept. Then kneeling, upon Christmas morn We said, ere the first quarter struck, TO A CANARY BIRD. By MARY ANN Browne. SING, little bird with the silken wing, Thou wast not nursed in the greenwood free, Hath taught thee that melodious thrill, Nor hast thou caught the spring's first breath, Sing, little bird, fold thy silken wing, 'Tis not the memory of hills or woods, That hath left its thrill on thy heart behind; A narrow cage and a prisoning room, As sweet as the songs of liberty. There's a spirit within that heart of thine God is thy teacher, the God of love Sing, little bird, rejoice and sing, Thy songs arise from a heavenly spring. THE PRAIRIE. A passage in LONGFELLOW's Evangeline. "FAR in the West there lies a desert land where the mountains Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits, Down from their desolate, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway, Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's waggon, Westward the Oregon flows the Walleway and the Owhyhee. Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river Mountains, Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska; And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras, Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert, Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound descend to the ocean, Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibra tions. Spreading between these streams are the wondrous beautiful prairies. Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine, Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas. Over them wander the buffalo herds, and the elk, and the roebuck; Over them wander the wolves, and herds of riderless horses; Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel; Over them wander the scatter'd tribes of Ishmael's children, Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trails Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture, marauders; Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift running rivers; And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert, Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brook-side, And over all this is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven, Like the protecting hand of God inverted above it. TO A FRIEND WHO HAD SENT ME SOME ROSES. As late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw I thought the garden-rose it far excel'd; Whisper'd of peace, and truth, and friendliness THE FIVE CHILDREN. A Ballad by S. M., author of Lays from English History, &c. The incident is founded on a narrative in the newspapers. It is taken from the Forget me Not, an annual of the year 1847. It well deserves a place here. VOL. V. Он, gently sways the rocking boat Far and few, through fields of blue, |