A THOUSAND miles from land are we
Tossing about on the roaring sea;
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast:
The sails are scattered abroad, like weeds,
The strong masts shake, like quivering reeds,
The mighty cables, and iron chains,

The hull, which all earthly strength disdains:
They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
Their natural hard proud strength disown.

Up and down! up and down!

From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,
And amidst the flashing and feathery foam,
The Stormy Petrel finds a home,-

A home, if such a place may be,

For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,
On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,

And only seeketh her rocky lair

To warm her young, and to teach them spring

At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing!

O'er the deep! o'er the deep!

Where the whale, and the shark, and sword-fish sleep,
Outflying the blast and the driving rain,

The Petrel telleth her tale-in vain :
For the mariner curseth the warning bird
Who bringeth him news of the storm unheard!
Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill,
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still:
Yet he ne'er falters :-So, Petrel, spring

Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!

BARRY CORNWALL.

The Stormy Petrel, or Mother Carey's Chicken, Procellaria Pelagica, is seen by navigators in every part of the ocean, skimming over the surface of a heavy rolling sea. Before a storm, these birds flock under the wake of a ship, and are looked upon by the sailors as foreboding evil. "But," says that fascinating writer and accurate naturalist, Alexander Wilson, "as well might they curse the midnight lighthouse, that star-like, guides them on their watery way, or the buoy, that warns them of the sunken rocks below, as this harmless wanderer, whose manner informs them of the approach of the storm, and thereby enables them to prepare for it.'

SPRING.

Ir 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 an hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than fifty years of reason:

Our minds will drink at every pore,

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey :
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from the day.

And from the blessed 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.

WORDSWORTH.

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,—

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end ;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou 'rt gone—the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form: yet, on my heart,

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

W. C. BRYANT.

TO A YOUNG OAK.

YOUNG OAK, when I planted thee deep in the ground,
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine,
That thy dark waving branches would flourish around,
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.

Such, such was my hope when in infancy's years,

On the land of my fathers I rear'd thee with pride; They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,— Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide.

I left thee, my Oak, and since that fatal hour,

A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my sire;

"Till manhood shall crown me, not mine is the power; But his, whose neglect may have bade thee expire.

Oh! hardy thou wert-even now little care

Might revive thy young head, and thy wounds gently heal; But thou wert not fated affection to share,

For, who could suppose that a stranger would feel?

Ah! droop not, my Oak! lest thy head for a while,
'Ere twice round yon glory this planet shall run,
The hand of thy master will teach thee to smile,
When infancy's years of probation are done.

Oh, live then, my Oak, tower aloft from the weeds
That clog thy young growth, and assist thy decay;
For still in thy bosom are life's early seeds,

And still may thy branches their beauty display.

Oh! yet if maturity's years may be thine,

Tho' I shall be low in the cavern of death;
On thy leaves, yet the day-beam of ages may shine,
Uninjur'd by time, or the rude winter's breath.