CHILDREN.

How abounding in the sweetest and most wholesome sentiment, how truthful in conception, how poetical in description, is this passage from the Hon. Mrs. NORTON's Child of the Islands.

YES, deem her mad! for holy is the sway

Of that mysterious sense which bids us bend Toward the young souls new clothed in helpless clayFragile beginnings of a mighty end

Angels unwing'd-which human care must tend,
Till they can tread the world's rough path alone,
Serve for themselves, or in themselves offend.
But God o'erlooketh all from his high throne,
And sees with eyes benign their weakness-and our own!

Therefore we pray for them, when sunset brings
Rest to the joyous heart and shining head;
When flowers are closed, and birds fold up their wings,
And watchful mothers pass each cradle-bed

With hush'd, soft steps and earnest eyes that shed
Tears far more glad than smiling! Yea, all day

We bless them; while, by guileless pleasure led, Their voices echo in their gleesome play,

And their whole careless souls are making holiday.

And if, by Heaven's inscrutable decree,

Death calls, and human skill is vain to save : If the bright child, that clamber'd to our knee, Cold and inactive fills the silent grave,

Then with what wild lament we moan and rave! What passionate tears fall down in ceaseless shower. There lies perfection !—there of all life gaveThe bud that would have proved the sweetest flower That ever woke to bloom within an earthly bower!

For in this hope our intellects abjure

All reason-all experience-and forego

Belief in that which only is secure,

Our natural chance and share of human woe;
The father pitieth David's heart-struck blow,

But for himself such augury defies;

No future Absalom his love can know : No pride, no passion, no rebellion lies

In the unsullied depth of those delightful eyes!

Their innocent faces open like a book,

Full of sweet prophecies of coming good;
And we who pore thereon with loving look

Read what we most desire, not what we should,
Even that which suits our own ambitious mood.
The scholar sees distinction promised there-
The soldier, laurels in the field of blood-
The merchant, venturous skill and trading fair-
None read of broken hope-of failure of despair!

Nor ever can a parent's gaze behold
Defect of nature as a stranger doth;

For these (with judgment true, severe and cold)
Mark the ungainly step of heavy sloth-
Coarseness of feature-temper's easy wroth:
But those with dazzled hearts such errors spy,
(A halo of indulgence circling both :)
The plainest child a stranger passeth by
Shows lovely to the sight of some enamour'd eye!

The mother looketh from her latticed pane

Her children's voices echoing sweet and clear;
With merry leap and bound her side they gain,
Offering their wild field-flow'rets; all are dear,
Yet still she listens with an absent ear;

For while the strong and lovely round her press,
A halt uneven step sounds drawing near:
And all she leaves that crippled child to bless,
Folding him to her heart with cherishing caress.

Yea, where the soul denies illumined grace,
(The last the worst-the fatalist defect),
She, gazing earnest in that idiot face,

Thinks she perceives a dawn of intellect;
And year by year continues to expect
What time shall never bring, ere life be flown:

Still loving, hoping-patient, though deject,
Watching those eyes that answer not her own-
Near him-and yet how far! With him-but still alone!
Want of attraction this love cannot mar;

Years of rebellion cannot blot it out:

The prodigal returning from afar

Still finds a welcome given with song and shout!

The father's hand, without reproach or doubt,
Clasps his-who caused them all such bitter fears;
The mother's arms encircle him about:
That long dark course of alienated years,
Mark'd only by a burst of reconciling tears!

NIAGARA.

These lines were written by the classical and poetical Lord MORPETH, now Earl of CARLISLE, in the Guide Book, at the Falls. They are entitled to preservation in a more permanent place of abode.

THERE's nothing great or bright, thou glorious Fall,
Thou may'st not to the fancy's sense recal-
The thunder-riven cloud, the lightning's leap,
The stirring of the chambers of the deep;
Earth's emerald green, and many-tinted dyes,
The fleecy whiteness of the upper skies
The tread of armies thickening as they come,
The boom of cannon and the beat of drum;
The brow of beauty and the form of grace,
The passion and the prowess of our race,
The song of Homer in its loftiest hour,
The unresisted sweep of Roman power,
Britannia's trident on the azure sea,
America's young shout of liberty!

Oh may the wars that madden in thy deeps

There spend their rage, nor climb the encircling steeps, And till the conflict of thy surges cease

The Nations on thy bank repose in peace.

THE SONG OF MUSIC.

Another of the delicious songs from MOORE's Lalla Rookh.

FROM Chindara's warbling fount I come,
Call'd by that moonlight garland's spell;

From Chindara's fount, my fairy home,
Where in music, morn and night, I dwell.

Where lutes in the air are heard about,
And voices are singing the whole day long,
And every sigh the heart breathes out
Is tuned, as it leaves the lips, to song!

For mine is the lay that lightly floats,
And mine are the murmuring dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly!
And the passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk-wind, over the water blowing,
Ruffles the wave, but sweetens it too!

Mine is the charm whose mystic sway
The spirits of past delight obey;-
Let but the powerful talisman sound,
And they come, like Genii, hovering round.
And mine is the gentle song that bears,
From soul to soul the wishes of love,
As a bird that wafts through genial airs
The cinnamon seed from grove to grove.
'Tis I that mingle in one sweet measure
The past, the present, and future of pleasure;
When memory links the tone that is gone

With the blissful tone that's still on the ear;
And Hope from a heavenly note flies on

To a note more heavenly still that is near!

The warrior's heart, when touch'd by me,
Can as downy soft and as yielding be

As his own white plume, that high amid death
Through the field has shone--yet moves with a breath.
And oh, how the eyes of Beauty glisten,

When music has reach'd her inward soul, Like the silent stars that wink and listen While Heaven's eternal melodies roll!

Then hither I come, from my fairy home,
And if there's a magic in music's strain,
I swear by the breath of that moonlight wreath
Thy lover shall sigh at thy feet again.

THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT.

A remarkable fragment by SHELLEY, exhibiting his very peculiar and mystical train of thought, wealth of words, and delicate sense of rhythm and melody. It will be read with great interest, and cannot fail to be admired by all lovers of true poetry.

SLEEP on! sleep on! forget thy pain ;
My hand is on thy brow,

My spirit on thy brain,

My pity on thy heart, poor friend,
And from my fingers flow

The powers of life, and like a sign
Seal thee from thy hour of woe,
And brood on thee, but may not blend
With thine!

Sleep on! sleep on! I love thee not;
But when I think that he

Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers as thine of weeds
Might have been lost like thee,
And that a hand, which was not mine,
Might then have chased his agony
As I another's-my heart bleeds
For thine!

Sleep! sleep! and with the slumber of
The dead and the unborn,

Forget thy life and woe;

Forget that thou must wake for ever,

Forget the world's dull scorn,

Forget lost health and the divine

Feelings that die in youth's brief morn,

And forget me, for I can never
Be thine!

Like a cloud big with a May shower,
My soul weeps healing rain
On thee, thou wither'd flower,
It breathes mute music on thy rest,
Its odour calms my brain;