And the car of the victor or carriage of state "Twas here where the miller's son paced to and fro, Now pensively leaning, now twirling his stick, grew quick, Why, why did he linger so restlessly there, With church-going vestment and sprucely comb'd hair? He loved, oh! he loved, and had promised to wait For the one he adored, at the old farm gate. 'Twas here where the grey-headed gossips would meet, And the falling of markets, or goodness of wheat The Parliament doings — the bill and debate, Were all canvass'd and weigh'd at the old farm gate. 'Twas over the gate I taught Pincher to bound With the strength of a steed, and the grace of a hound; The beagle might hunt, and the spaniel might swim, But none could leap over that postern like him. When Dobbin was saddled for mirth-making trip, And the quickly-pull'd willow-branch served for a whip, Spite of hugging and tugging he'd stand for his freight, While I climbed on his back from the old farm gate. 'Tis well to pass portals where pleasure and fame May come winging our moments and gilding our name; But give me the joy and the freshness of mind, When, away on some sport, behind; the old gate slamm'd I've listen'd to music, but none that could speak And the dear ones came home through the old farm gate. Oh! fair is the barrier taking its place; But it darkens a picture my soul longed to trace. And the rails that my growing hand scarcely could clasp, Oh! how strangely the warm spirit grudges to part With the commonest relic once link'd to the heart; And the brightest of fortune the kindliest fate Would not banish my love for the old farm gate! Eliza Cook. I SEE in this world two heaps of human happiness and misery. Now, if I can take the smallest bit from one heap, and add to the other, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something; I should be glad indeed to do greater things, but I will not neglect this. Rev. John Newton. AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS. WHEN a man is quietly journeying downwards into the valley of the shadow of departed youth, and begins to contemplate in a shortened perspective the end of his pilgrimage, he becomes more solicitous than ever that the remainder of his wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant, and the evening of his life, like the evening of a summer's day, fade away in mild uninterrupted serenity. If haply his heart has escaped, uninjured, through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then administer to the purest of his felicities, and its chords vibrate more musically for the trials they have sustained - like the viol, which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age. To a mind thus temperately harmonized, thus matured and mellowed by a long lapse of years, there is something truly congenial in the quiet enjoyment of our early autumn, amid the tran quillities of the country. There is a sober and chastened air of gaiety diffused over the face of nature, peculiarly interesting to an old man; and when he views the surrounding landscape withering under his eye, it seems as if he and nature were taking a last farewell of each other, and parting with a melancholy smile-like a couple of old friends, who having sported away the spring and summer of life together, part at the approach of winter with a kind of prophetic fear that they are never to meet again. 66 * There are many features peculiar to our Autumn, and which give it an individual character: the green and yellow melancholy" that first steals over the landscape the mild and steady serenity of the weather, and the transparent purity of the atmosphere, speak not merely to the senses, but to the heart, it is the season of liberal emotions. Το this succeeds fantastic gaiety, a motley dress, which the woods assume, where green and yellow, orange, purple, crimson, and scarlet, are whimsically blended together. A sickly splendour this!-like the wild and broken-hearted gaiety that sometimes precedes dissolution, or that childish sportiveness of super H |