O for one spot of living green,

One little spot where leaves can grow,—
To love unblamed, to walk unseen,

To dream above, to sleep below!

B

A GOOD TIME GOING!

RAVE singer of the coming time,

Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme,

The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,
Good by! Good by!-Our hearts and hands,
Our lips in honest Saxon phrases,
Cry, God be with him, till he stands
His feet among the English daisies!

'Tis here we part;

- for other eyes

The busy deck, the fluttering streamer,
The dripping arms that plunge and rise,
The waves in foam, the ship in tremor,
The kerchiefs waving from the pier,
The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him,

The deep blue desert, lone and drear,
With heaven above and home before him!

And twirls the spotty globe to find it;
This little speck the British Isles?
"T is but a freckle, - never mind it!

He laughs, and all his prairies roll,

Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, And ridges stretched from pole to pole Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!

But Memory blushes at the sneer,

And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant: "An islet is a world," she said,

"When glory with its dust has blended, And Britain keeps her noble dead

Till earth and seas and skies are rended!"

Beneath each swinging forest-bough
Some arm as stout in death reposes,
From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow
Her valor's life-blood runs in roses;

Nay, let our brothers of the West

Write smiling in their florid pages, One half her soil has walked the rest In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp,
From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather,
The British oak with rooted grasp

Her slender handful holds together;

With cliffs of white and bowers of green,
And Ocean narrowing to caress her,
And hills and threaded streams between,
Our little mother isle, God bless her!

In earth's broad temple where we stand, Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us,

We hold the missal in our hand,

Bright with the lines our Mother taught us, Where'er its blazoned page betrays

The glistening links of gilded fetters,
Behold, the half-turned leaf displays
Her rubric stained in crimson letters!

Enough! To speed a parting friend
'Tis vain alike to speak and listen ;-
Yet stay,
these feeble accents blend
With rays of light from eyes that glisten.
Good by! once more, - and kindly tell
In words of peace the young world's story,
And say, besides, we love too well

Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory!

THE LAST BLOSSOM.

HOUGH young no more, we still would
dream

Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.

Who knows a woman's wild caprice?
It played with Goethe's silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father's "niece"
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.

When sixty bids us sigh in vain

To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, We think upon those ladies twain

Who loved so well the tough old Dean.

We see the Patriarch's wintry face,
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,
And dream that Youth and Age embrace,
As April violets fill with snow.

Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile
His lotus-loving Memphian lies,
The musky daughter of the Nile,
With plaited hair and almond eyes.

Might we but share one wild caress
Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall,
And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress
The long cold kiss that waits us all!

My bosom heaves, remembering yet
The morning of that blissful day,
When Rose, the flower of spring, I met,
And gave my raptured soul away.

Flung from her eyes of purest blue,
A lasso, with its leaping chain,
Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew

O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.

Thou com'st to cheer my waning age,
Sweet vision, waited for so long!
Dove that would seek the poet's cage
Lured by the magic breath of song!

She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid,
Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told!
O'er girlhood's yielding barricade

Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold!

Come to my arms! - love heeds not years;
No frost the bud of passion knows.
Ha! what is this my frenzy hears?

A voice behind me uttered, Rose !

Sweet was her smile, - but not for me;
Alas! when woman looks too kind,
Just turn your foolish head and see,
Some youth is walking close behind!

"THE BOYS."

JAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?

If there has, take him out, without making a noise.

Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake! We want some new garlands for those we have shed, And these are white roses in place of the red.