TO MY SISTER.

WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY.

IT is the first mild day of March,
Each minute sweeter than before;

The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you; and pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate

Our living calendar :

We from to-day, my friend, will date

The opening of the year.

Love, now an universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:

-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts may make,
Which they shall long obey;

We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessèd Power that rolls

About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:

They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my

Sister! come, I pray,

With speed put on your woodland dress;
-And bring no book for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

LINES,

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING,

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclin'd,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and play'd;
Their thoughts I cannot measure :—
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If I these thoughts may not prevent,
If such be of my creed the plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

WE walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, "The will of God be done!"

A village schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering gray;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the streaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I, was well begun ; Then, from thy breast what thought,

Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?"

A second time did Matthew stop;

And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,

To me he made reply: