Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well. How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips! Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from the loved situation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well ; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well. SAMUEL WOODWORTH. THE OLD ARM-CHAIR. I LOVE it, I love it! and who shall dare I've bedewed it with tears, I've embalmed it with sighs. 'Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart; In childhood's hour I lingered near Say it is folly, and deem me weak, ELIZA COOK. WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE. Touch not a single bough! And I'll protect it now. Whose glory and renown And wouldst thou hew it down? Now towering to the skies! I sought its grateful shade; Here too my sisters played. My father pressed my hand- But let that old oak stand! My heart-strings round thee cling, And still thy branches bend. GEORGE PERKINS MORRIS. SEVEN TIMES TWO. ROMANCE. You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be, And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges Come over, come over to me. Yet birds' clearest carol by fall or by swelling No magical sense conveys, And bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days. She did not say to the sun, "Good night!" The tall pink foxglove bowed his head ; And, while on her pillow she softly lay, RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. (LORD HOUGHTON.) THREE YEARS SHE GREW. THREE years she grew in sun and shower; Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown: "Myself will to my darling be The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. "She shall be sportive as the fawn Or up the mountain springs; Of mute insensate things. "The floating clouds their state shall lend E'en in the motions of the storm "The stars of midnight shall be dear Where rivulets dance their wayward round, "And vital feelings of delight Her virgin bosom swell; Here in this happy dell." |