AUTUMN.

BY JOHN KEATS.

SEASON of mist and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun,

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer hath o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amidst thy store!
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath, and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too;
While barred clouds bloom the soft dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, born aloft,

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies!

And full brown lambs bleat loud from hilly bourn;

Hedge crickets sing; and now, with treble soft,

The redbreast whistles from a garden croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies! London Magazine.

66

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF IN THE

IRISH MELODIES."

ERIN! his heart of truth

At length is wholly thine,
Albeit, his careless youth

Was spent 'mid "smiles and wine;"
You watched his dawn of future fame,
Through many a day of grief and shame,
When cold apostate slaves withdrew the hand-
You held the high Harp to his eye,

And wept to see your lone hope lie

So long in Pleasure's bower, fettered in flowery band.

The wizard hand that framed,
Had waved its last farewell;
The latest soul was tamed

In death, that knew the spell.
Each after-hand that vainly tried
To waken notes of former pride,
(Through lapse of mouldering ages dim),
Backward, disgraced and baffled, fell—
In silence slept the powerful spell,
As if 't would sound for him, for only him!

Beneath his wondrous hand

Awaked, delighted, free,
Each string, from soft to grand,

From love to liberty!

Oh! there be hearts (nor they the worst),
Enthusiast, fondest hopes have nursed,
Heard his wild lays, and saw the while

Chains, then first with blushes worn;
Arms, in defiance tossed, and scorn,

And eyes that darkly frowned, or lightened to a smile.

Whether, by lonely stream,

Or 'mid the trembling leaves,

Wanders my waking dream

Of life, that smiles and grieves ;

Whether the young, vain hope, that led
To fancy's field be mute and dead,—
No print of mine, marking the lovely waste,-
My heart shall still frequent the sod,

By him, the sweetest minstrel, trod,

And bless the greener rings his fairy feet have traced. Examiner.

FRIENDS.

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ.

FRIEND after friend departs;
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end!
Were this frail world our final rest,
Living or dying none were blest.

Beyond the flight of time,—

Beyond the reign of death,—
There surely is some blessed clime
Where life is not a breath;

Nor life's affections transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upwards and expire!

There is a world above

Where parting is unknown!
A long eternity of love

Formed for the good alone;
And faith beholds the dying here
Translated to that glorious sphere!

Thus star by star declines

Till all are past away;

As morning high and higher shines

Το pure and perfect day:

Nor sink those stars in empty night,

But hide themselves in heaven's own light.

Literary Souvenir.

BY JOHN MALCOLM, ESQ.

SPIRIT of the lonely scene,
Desert shore, and distant sea!
Where man's step hath never been,
Or long hath ceased to be;-
By thy ever saddening shrines
Melancholy's vespers rise,—
There, when daylight calm declines,
She greets thine ear with sighs.

On the Pyramids sublime,

Towering o'er a thousand graves,—
Landmarks in the sea of Time,
Long wasted by its waves:
On the mystic, mouldering cone,
Hooded in the night of eld,
Thou hast fixed thine awful throne,
And silent empire held.

Gleaming high on Greenland's coast,
Where the polar star doth gem
Mountain pinnacles of frost,

Hoar Winter's diadem,

List'st thou to the rending roar
Of the ice upon the seas,

And howl of monsters from the shore,
Borne on the midnight breeze!

Or dost thou rather love to dwell
Where the lordly lion roams,
Whose awful voice, a nightly knell,
Peals through Palmyra's domes?
Or where majestic Babel lies

Buried in oblivious gloom,

Whose tower hath crumbled from the skies Into a desert tomb!

From thy deep and dread repose,

'Midst primeval, starless Night,
Didst thou start when God arose
And said-"Let there be light!"
Spirit! yet there comes a day

To restore thine ancient reign,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
And all be thine again!

Literary Souvenir.

THE CYPRESS TREE.

A slender tree upon a height in lonely beauty towers,
So dark, as if it only drank the rushing thunder-showers;
When birds were at their evening hymns, in thoughtful reverie,
I've marked the shadows deep and long from yonder cypress tree.

I've thought of Oriental tombs, of silent cities, where
In many a row the cypress stands, in token of despair!

And thought, beneath the evening star, how many a maiden crept
From life's discordant scene, and o'er the tomb in silence wept.

I've thought, thou lonely cypress tree, thou hermit of the grove, How many a heart, alas! is doomed forlorn on earth to rove; When all that charmed the morn of life, and cheered the youthful mind,

Have like the sunbeams passed away, and left but clouds behind!

Thou wert a token unto me, thou stem with dreary leaf,
So desolate thou look'st, as earth were but a home of grief!

A few short years shall swiftly glide, and then thy boughs shall

wave,

When tempests beat, and breezes sigh, above my silent grave! Blackwood's Magazine.

A