Control my spirit-guide my wandering heart;
Though but an atom 'midst immensity,
Still I am something fashion'd by Thy hand.

I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth,
On the last verge of mortal being stand,

Close to the realm where angels have their birth
Just on the boundary of the spirit land!

The chain of being is complete in me;
In me is matter's last gradation lost,
And the next step is Spirit-Deity!

I can command the lightning, and am dust!
A monarch and a slave; a worm, a god :

Whence came I here, and how? so marvellously
Constructed and conceived!-unknown? This clod
Lives surely through some higher energy:
From out itself alone it could not be.

Creator? yes; Thy wisdom and Thy word
Created me. Thou source of life and good!
Thou Spirit of my spirit and my Lord!

Thy light, Thy love, in their bright plenitude,
Fill'd me with an immortal soul, to spring
Over the abyss of death, and bade it wear
The garments of eternal day, and wing

Its heavenly flight beyond the little sphere,
Even to its source, to Thee, its author, Thee.

O thought ineffable! O vision blest.

(Though worthless our conception all of Thee)
Yet shall Thy shadow'd image fill our breast,
And waft its homage to thy Deity.

God! thus alone my lowly thoughts can soar;
Thus seek Thy presence. Being wise and good!
'Midst Thy vast works, admire, obey, adore,
And when the tongue is eloquent no more,
The soul shall speak in tears its gratitude.

HOW MAY WAS FIRST MADE.

THOMAS MILLER.

[Thomas Miller was originally a basket-maker at Gainsborough, where he was born in 1808. His literary attempts attracting the attention of Rogers and Moore, he was enabled to start as a publisher. Died Oct. 28, 1874.]

As Spring upon a silver cloud,

Lay looking on the world below,
Watching the breezes as they bowed
The buds and blossoms to and fro,

She saw the fields with hawthorns walled-
Said Spring "New buds I will create."
She to a Flower Spirit called,

Who on the month of May did wait,
And said "Fetch me a hawthorn spray,
And I will make the buds of May.'

and bright,

Said Spring, "The grass looks green
The hawthorn-hedges too are green,
I'll sprinkle them with flowers of light,
Such stars as earth hath never seen.
And all through England's velvet vales,
Her steep hill-sides, and haunted streams,
Where uplands dip into the dales,

Where'er the hawthorn stands and dreams,
And thick-leaved trees make dark the day,
I'll light the land with buds of May.

"Like pearly dew-drops, white and round, The shut-up bloom shall first appear, And in it be such fragrance found

As breeze before did never bear,
Such odours as in Eden dwelt

When angels hovered round its bowers,
And long-haired Eve at morning knelt
In innocence amid the flowers:
Such perfumes I'll cast every way,

And scent the land throughout with May.

"And oft shall groups of children come,
Threading their way through shady places,
From many a peaceful English home,
The sunshine falling on their faces,
Starting with merry shouts the thrush,
As through green lanes they wander singing,
To gather the white hawthorn bush :
While homeward in the evening,
With smiling faces they shall say
"There's nothing half so sweet as May.'

"And many a poet, yet unborn,

Shall link its name to some sweet lay;

While lovers oft at early morn,

Shall gather blossoms of the May;
And eyes bright as the silver dews

Which on the rounded May-buds sleep,
Shall round it looks of love diffuse;
And beauty's blushes it shall keep,
To warm up all the white away,
Of buds that form the bloom of May."

The silver cloud on which she lay
Spring shook, and on the hawthorn spray
It fell, and made the buds of May.

THE CHILD AND THE DEW-DROPS.
J. E. CARPENTER.

"O FATHER, dear father, why pass they away,
The dew-drops that sparkled at dawning of day-
That glitter'd like stars by the light of the moon,
Oh, why are those dew-drops dissolving so soon?
Does the sun, in his wrath, chase their brightness away,
As though nothing that's lovely might live for a day?
The moonlight has faded-the flowers still remain,
But the dew has dried out of their petals again."

66

My child," said the father, "look up to the skies,
Behold yon bright rainbow-those beautiful dyes;
There there are the dew-drops in glory reset,
'Mid the jewels of heaven they are glittering yet.
Then are we not taught, by each beautiful
To mourn not earth's fair things though fleeting away
For though youth of its brightness and beauty be riven,
All that withers on earth blooms more brightly in heaven."

Alas for the father!-how little knew he

ray,

The words he had spoken prophetic could be;

That the beautiful child,-the bright star of his day,
Was e'en then like the dew-drops-dissolving away.
Oh! sad was the father, when lo, in the skies
The rainbow again spread its beauteous dyes;
And then he remember'd the maxims he'd given,
And thought of his child and the dew-drops in heaven.

?

THE NIGHTINGALE'S NEST.

JOHN CLARE.

[John Clare, the Northamptonshire peasant-poet, was born at Helpstone, in 1793, and was the son of a poor agricultural labourer, who, in his latter days, became an inmate of the parish workhouse. By extra work as a plough-boy, John contrived to earn enough money to pay for such schooling as could be procured in a humble village, and, having learned to read the Bible, he saved enough to purchase a volume of Thomson's "Seasons." He shortly began to compose verses: they were shown from hand to hand, admired, and in 1820 his first efforts were published, with an account of the poet from the pen of the late Mr. Octavius Gilchrist. In 1817 Clare published another volume by subscription. The critics recognised in it the effusions of a thoughtful mind,

relying on itself, and disdaining to paraphrase former poets. By the aid of the late Earl Fitzwilliam, Clare became possessed of an income of about 451. per annum, besides a cottage rent free. Shortly after his marriage in 1820, he became hopelessly, but harmlessly, insane, and he remained an inmate of the County asylum at Northampton until his death in 1864.]

UP this green woodland ride let's softly rove
And list the Nightingale; she dwells just here.
Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love;
For here I've heard her many a merry year,
At morn, at eve, nay, all the livelong day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot
Just where that old man's-beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours o'er the road, and stops the way;
And where the child its bluebell flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails;
There have I hunted like a very boy,

Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn,
To find her nest, and see her feed her young.
And vainly did I many hours employ:

All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn.

And where those crumpling fern-leaves ramp among
The hazel's under boughs, I've nestled down
And watched her while she sang; and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress than russet brown.
Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,
And feathers stand on end, as 'twere with joy,
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part
Of Summer's fame she shared, for so to me
Did happy fancies shapen her employ.
But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred,
All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain:
The timid bird had left the hazel bush,
And oft in distance hid to sing again.
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,
Rich ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spurred the emulating Thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs;
For while of half the year Care him bereaves,
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast,
The Nightingale to Summer's life belongs,
And naked trees and Winter's nipping wrongs
Are strangers to her music and her rest.
Her joys are ever green, her world is wide!
Hark! there she is, as usual. Let's be hush;
For in this blackthorn clump, if rightly guessed,
Her curious house is hidden. Part aside
Those hazel branches in a gentle way,

And stoop right cautious 'neath the rustling boughs,
For we will have another search to-day,

And hunt this fern-strewn thorn-clump round and round,
And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows

We'll wade right through; it is a likely nook.
In such like spots, and often on the ground

They'll build where rude boys never think to look ;-
Ay, as I live! her secret nest is here
Upon this whitethorn stump!

I've searched about
For hours in vain. There, put that bramble by,—
Nay, trample on its branches, and get near.
How subtle is the bird! She started out,
And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh
Ere we were past the brambles: and now, near
Her nest, she sudden stops, as choking fear,
That might betray her home. So even now
We'll leave it as we found it; safety's guard
Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still.
We will not plunder music of its dower,
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall,
For melody seems hid in every flower

That blossoms near thy home. These bluebells all
Seem bowing with the beautiful in song;

And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves,
Seems blushing at the singing it has heard.
How curious is the nest! No other bird
Uses such loose materials, or weaves

Its dwelling in such spots! Dead oaken leaves
Are placed without, and velvet moss within.
And little scraps of grass, and scant and spare,
What hardly seem materials, down and hair;
For from men's haunts she nothing seems to win.
Snug lie her curious eggs, in number five,
Of deadened green, or rather olive-brown,
And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well.
So here we'll leave them, still unknown to wrong,
As the old woodland's legacy of song.

THE GOLDSMITH'S DAUGHTER.

JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAND.

[Uhland was born at Tübingen on the 26th of April, 1787, and ranks among the greatest of the poets of Germany. A lawyer by profession, and having taken part in the various political struggles which agitated the German people, he was known in "father-land" as a politician as well as a minstrel; but it is in the latter character that his reputation, which is world-wide, has been wafted abroad. His favourite material for writing was the legends and traditions of the nations of Western Europe, and these he invested with a strange weird charm by the fantastic power of his singular genius. Uhland's principal works