OMEWHAT back from the village street stands the old-fashioned country-seat;

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar trees their shadows throw;

And, from its station in the hall,

An ancient timepiece says to all,

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Half way up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands,

From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs alas !
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say at each chamber door,
"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"

NOVE

The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose;
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,

This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin stacher thro',
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily,

His clane hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile.
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does all his weary carking cares beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.

Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers : The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears;

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years,
Anticipation forward points the view.

The mother, wi' her needle and her shears,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new: The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's an' their mistress's command,
The younkers a' are warned to obey;
And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand,
And ne'er tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play :
And, oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,

Implore his counsel and assisting might: [aright!" They never sought in vain that sought the Lord But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door,

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor,

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny s e'e, and flush her cheek; Wi' heart struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jennie hafflins is afraid to speak; [rake. Weel pleas'd the mother hears, it's nae wild worthless

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben:

A strappan youth; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,

But, blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; The woman, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found!
O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,

And sage experience bids me this declare-
"If heav'n a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that sents the ev'ning gale!"

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food:
The scoupe their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood;
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell,
And aft he's prest, and aft he calls it gude;
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

How 'twas a towmond auld, sin'lint was i' the bell.

The cheerful supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace,

The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'iently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us worship God!" he says with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise;

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; Perhaps "Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive" Martyrs," worthy of the name; Or noble "Elgin" beats the heav'nward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was a friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire :
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereupon to lay his head:
How His first followers and servants sped;

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land; How He, who lone in Patmus banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;

And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by
Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope, "springs exultant on triumphant wing,"
That thus they all shall meet in future days;
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere, Compar'd with this, how poor religion's pride,

In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations wide

Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart! The Power incens'd, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in the book of life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest;
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide; But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad. Princes and lords are but the breath of kings; "An honest man's the noblest work of God:" And certes in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind;

HE farmer sat in his easy chair,

THE former hat pipis clay,

While his hale old wife, with busy care,
Was clearing the dinner away;

A sweet little girl, with fine blue eyes,

On her grandfather's knee, was catching flies.

The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face;
He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self-same place.

As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye.
"Don't smoke," said the child, "how it makes you
cry!"

The house-dog lay stretched out on the floor,
Where the shade after noon used to steal;
The busy old wife, by the kitchen door,
Was turning the spinning-wheel;
And the old brass clock on the mantle-tree,
Had plodded along to almost three.

Still the farmer sat in his easy-chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moistened brow and the cheek so fair
Of his sweet grandchild was pressed;
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay:
Fast asleep were they both, on that summer day!
-Charles Gamage Eastman.

A

ND thou hast walked about (how strange a story!) In Thebes' streets three thousand years ago, When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And time had not begun to overthrow These temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy ;

Thou hast a tongue,-come let us hear its tune; Thou 'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,

Not like thin ghosts of disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones and flesh and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name? Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Hamer?

Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden
By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade,-
Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Mammon's statue, which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou art a priest,-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perhaps the very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat;

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled;
For thou wert dead and buried and embalmed

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled : Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop-if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seenHow the world looked when it was fresh and young, And the great deluge still had left it green; Or was it then so old that history's pages Contained no record of its early ages.