How SWEET it is, when mother Fancy rocks

The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood!

An old place, full of many a lovely brood,

Tall trees, green arbours, and ground flowers in flocks; And wild rose tip-toe upon hawthorn stocks,

Like to the bonny lass, who plays her pranks

At Wakes and Fairs with wandering Mountebanks,When she stands cresting the Clown's head, and mocks

The crowd beneath her. Verily I think,

Such place to me is sometimes like a dream

Or map of the whole world: thoughts, link by link,
Enter through ears and eyesight, with such gleam
Of all things, that at last in fear I shrink,
And leap at once from the delicious stream.

WORDSWORTH

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

(See Frontispiece.)

THEY grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee,
Their graves are severed far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow,

She had each folded flower in sight-
Where are those dreamers now?

One 'midst the forests of the West,
By a dark stream is laid;

The Indian knows his place of rest

Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep:
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are drest
Above the noble slain;

He wrapt his colours round his breast

On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers

Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;

She faded 'midst Italian flowers,

The last of that bright band.

And, parted thus, they rest-who played
Beneath the same green tree,

Whose voices mingled as they prayed

Around one parent knee:

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheered with song the hearth,—

Alas for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, O earth!

MRS. HEMANS.

SELECTIONS

FROM

BEATTIE'S "MINSTREL."