forefathers in their simple state of the How touching and beautiful were. 17 stances, the names they gave to our best flowers, or any other they were fami quainted with!-Every month for mar have we been importing plants and from all quarters of the globe, many of valid are spread through our gardens, and s haps likely to be met with on the few in which we have left. Will their ba names ever be displaced by plain E pellations, which will bring them bone t hearts by connection with our joys and sor It can never be, unless society treads ba steps towards those simplicities wh been banished by the undue influence d spreading and spreading in every direc that city-life with every generation takes and more the lead of rural. Among the cients, villages were reckoned the seas barism. Refinement, for the most part is increases the desire to accumulate weat while theories of political economy are b fully pleading for the practice, inh pervades all our dealings in buying and This selfishness wars against disinter imagination in all directions, and, evils o round in a circle, barbarism spreads in quarter of our island. Oh for the reign of tice, and then the humblest man amer would have more power and dignity about him than the highest have now!

The gentlest breath of resignation drew; While Venus in a passion of despair Rent, weeping over him, her golden hair Spangled with drops of that celestial shower.

NEVER enlivened with the liveliest ray That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,

Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,

This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,

Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves. When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,

One after one submitting to their doom, When her coevals each and all are fled, What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed?

The old mythologists, more impressed than we

Of this late day by character in tree
Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,
Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,
Or with the language of the viewless air
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature's
laws

But in Man's fortunes. Hence a thousand tales

Sung to the plaintive lyre in Grecian vales. Nor doubt that something of their spirit swayed

The fancy-stricken Youth or heart-sick Maid,

Who, while each stood companionless and

eyed

This undeparting Flower in crimson dyed, Thought of a wound which death is slow to

cure,

A fate that has endured and will endure,

And, patience coveting yet passion feeding, Called the dejected Lingerer, Loves lies bleeding.

THE CUCKOO-CLOCK
1845. 1845

Of this clock I have nothing further to say than what the poem expresses, except that it must be here recorded that it was a present from the dear friend for whose sake these notes were chiefly undertaken, and who has written them from my dictation.

WOULDST thou be taught, when sleep has taken flight,

By a sure voice that can most sweetly tell,
How far off yet a glimpse of morning light,
And if to lure the truant back be well,
Forbear to covet a Repeater's stroke,
That, answering to thy touch, will sound
the hour;

Better provide thee with a Cuckoo-clock
For service hung behind thy chamber-door;
And in due time the soft spontaneous shock,
The double note, as if with living power,
Will to composure lead-or make thee
blithe as bird in bower.

10

This subject has been treated of in another ote. I will here only by way of comment direct ttention to the fact that pictures of animals nd other productions of nature as seen in conervatories, menageries, museums, etc., would lo little for the national mind, nay they would De rather injurious to it, if the imagination were excluded by the presence of the object, more or ess out of a state of nature. If it were not that we learn to talk and think of the lion and the eagle, the palm-tree and even the cedar, from the impassioned introduction of them so frequently into Holy Scripture and by great poets,

Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy,
But to recall the truth by some faint trace
Of power ethereal and celestial grace,
That in the living Creature find on earth a

place.

I KNOW AN AGED MAN CONSTRAINED TO DWELL"

1846. 1850

I KNOW an aged Man constrained to dwell In a large house of public charity, Where he abides, as in a Prisoner's cell, With numbers near, alas! no company.

When he could creep about, at will, thong poor

And forced to live on alms, this old Man fes. A Redbreast, one that to his cottage dor Came not, but in a lane partook his bread

There, at the root of one particular tree, An easy seat this worn-out Labourer fou While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee

Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground

Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day. What signs of mutual gladness when they met!

Think of their common peace, their simple play,

The parting moment and its fond regret.

Months passed in love that failed not fulfil,

In spite of season's change, its own deman By fluttering pinions here and busy bill; There by caresses from a tremulous hand