I remember, I remember
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heav'n

Than when I was a boy.

T. HOOD.

ODE TO THE CUCKOO.

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy, wandering through the wood
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear,

And imitates thy lay.

What time the pea puts on the bloom

Thou fliest thy vocal vale,

An annual guest in other lands,

Another Spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!

O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.

J. LOGAN.

RULE, BRITANNIA.

WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:

66

Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so bless'd as thee,

Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
But work their woe, and thy renown.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main;
And every shore it circles, thine.

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair:

Bless'd isle! with matchless beauty crown'd,

And manly hearts to guard the fair :

66

Rule, Britannia, rule the waves,

Britons never will be slaves."

J. THOMSON.

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

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 naught beyond, O Earth!

F. D. HEMANS.

SONG.

"SOLDIER, rest! thy warfare o'er,

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; Dream of battled fields no more,

Days of danger, nights of waking. In our isle's enchanted hall,

Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,

Fairy strains of music fall,

Every sense in slumber dewing.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

Dream of fighting-fields no more:

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

"No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armour's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here

Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping.

"Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not, with the rising sun,

Bugles here shall sound reveillé.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;

Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveillé."