If over the sea we two were bound,

What port, dear child, would we choose for ours?
We would sail, and sail, till at last we found

This fairy gold of a million flowers.
Yet, darling, we'd find, if at home we stayed,
Of many small joys our pleasures are made,
More near than we think,

very close at hand,

Lie the golden fields of Sunshine Land.

- Edith Matilda Thomas.

SONG OF PRAISE.

AIREST of stars, last in the train of night

FA

If better thou belong not to the dawn

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.

His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines -
With every plant, in sign of worship, wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow
Melodious murmurs, warbling, tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls; ye birds,
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings, and in your notes, his praise.

-John Milton.

THE COMING OF SPRING.

TH

`HERE'S something in the air
That's new and sweet and rare

A scent of summer things,
A whir as if of wings.

Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,

And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

The schoolboy, wand'ring 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!

Oh, 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.

-John Logan.

I

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

COME, I come! ye have called me long;

I come o'er the mountains, with light and song;

Ye may trace my step o'er the waking earth
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers,

And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes
Are veiled with wreaths as Italian plains;
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,

To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have looked o'er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth;
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the reindeer bounds o'er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright, where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep blue sky,
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,

They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o'er the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.

OOK all around thee! How the spring advances!

LOOK

New life is playing through the gay, green trees, See how, in yonder bower, the light leaf dances To the bird's tread, and to the quivering breeze! How every blossom in the sunlight glances!

The winter-frost in his dark cavern flees,

And earth, warm-wakened, feels through every vein. The kindling influence of the vernal rain.