And tread with awe these favoured bowers,
Nor wound the shrubs, nor bruise the flowers;
So may your path with sweets abound,
So may your couch with rest be crowned!
But harm betide the wayward swain
Who dares our sacred haunts profane!

SHENSTONE.

INSTRUCTION.

THE heart has tendrils, like the vine,
Which round another's bosom twine,
Outspringing from the parent tree
Of deeply planted sympathy,

Whose flowers are hope, its fruits are bliss;
Beneficence its harvest is.-

There are some bosoms dark and drear,
Which an unwatered desert are;
Yet there a curious eye may trace
Some smiling spot, some verdant place,
Where little flowers, the weeds between,
Spend their soft fragrance all unseen.
Despise them not-for wisdom's toil
Has ne'er disturbed that stubborn soil;
Yet care and culture might have brought
The ore of truth from mines of thought;
And fancy's fairest flowers had bloomed
Where truth and fancy lie entombed.—

Insult him not-his blackest crime
May, in his Maker's eye sublime,
In spite of all thy pride be less
Than e'en thy daily waywardness:
Than many a sin, and many a stain,
Forgotten, and impressed again.—

There is, in every human heart,
Some not completely barren part,

Where seeds of love and truth might grow,
And flowers of generous virtue blow;
To plant, to watch, to water there,―

This be our duty-be our care!

And sweet it is the growth to trace
Of worth, of intellect, of grace,

In bosoms where our labours first
Bid the young seed of spring-time burst;
And lead it on, from hour to hour,
To ripen into perfect flower.

Hast thou e'er seen a garden clad

In all the robes that Eden had!

Or vale o'erspread with streams and trees,—
A paradise of mysteries!

Plains, with green hills adorning them,
Like jewels in a diadem?

These gardens, vales, and plains, and hills,
Which beauty gilds and music fills,
Were once but deserts-culture's hand
Has scattered verdure o'er the land;
And smiles and fragrance rule, serene,
Where barren wilds usurped the scene.
And such is man! a soil which breeds
Or sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds:
Flowers lovely as the morning's light—
Weeds deadly as the aconite;
Just as his heart is trained to bear
The poisonous weed, or floweret fair.
Flow, then, pure knowledge! ever flow!
Change nature's face to man below;
A paradise once more disclose-
Make deserts bloom with Sharon's rose;
And, through a Saviour's blood once shed,
Raise his forlorn and drooping head.

BOWRING.

THE MUSK-RAT.

WHERE the wild stream, half choked with sedgy weeds, Winds its dark course through transatlantic meads,

And, sweeping onwards, join the river's flow,

That tumbles down in swift cascades below,
Bound for St. Lawrence and his islets,-there
Inhabit many a Musk-rat pair,

That rove the verdant shores and pluck the weed,
And, in fond concert, on the foliage feed;
Or gather fruits, or dive where, in its shell,
The pearly muscle and the green mya dwell,
Sometimes their food: but stay, delighted, where
Spreads on the bank the strawberry's wild parterre;

And on the bank the mother finds some cave
To nurse her young beside the silent wave;
And all are foragers: soon as her brood,
In ripened strength, may learn to seek their food,
Then oft, at midnight by the moon's pale beam,
Their moving shadows dance beside the stream,
And vanish quick; whilst, sweet as vernal hay,
Their fragrance breathes where'er the ramblers stray.
But, when the fading leaves of autumn fall,
Their guardian gnomes the scattered wanderers call,
And teach their bands in fed'ral strength to form,
Ere winter comes, a shelter from the storm.
The solid structure, framed with twisted reeds,
Plastered with mud, and interlaced with weeds,
Four cubits measures in its space around,
Raised, like a little turret, from the ground:
Within, thick buttress-steps around supply
Strength to their walls, and keep their lodgings dry;
At top, a rounded cupola or dome,

Twelve inches thick, roofs in this winter-home.
Here, with their young, whole families repose,
Whilst, gathered o'er them, rest the winter snows.
Yet do they not, like marmots, hoard, nor sleep,
But wander still, and forage in the deep;

Like mining moles, through hollow pathways, stray,
To spreading roots, and catch retiring prey;
And still beneath the frozen stream they feed
Upon the water-lily and the reed.

And thus they live, secluded from the light,
In total darkness, in perpetual night.

At length the sun resumes as winter yields
A strengthening empire o'er the withered fields.
The ice dissolves, the snows all melt away.
And leave exposed the Musk-rat's house of clay.
Then comes the hunter, and his efforts tear
The dome-roof off, and pour the day's full glare
Upon their darkness, and bewilder all,
And in their home the easy victims fall;
For e'en their gnomes, the sudden burst of day
Frights from their post, and drives confused away:
But soon they rally, and a part redeem,

And, through their galleries, lead them to the stream;
And these, again, are wanderers, as before,
Within the river, and upon the shore.

ANON.

THE CASTING OF THE BELL.

THROUGH yonder clay at close of day
The molten mass shall run,
The fashioned bell itself shall tell
Our weary task is done.
Choose me splinters of the pine,
Choose them clean and dry,
That the spiry flame may shine
Up the tube on high.
Pour the molten copper in,
Mix it with the bubbling tin,
That the viscous mass may flow,
Duly through the mouth below.

That offspring of consuming fire,
And man's creative hand,
High from the summit of the spire,
Shall murmur o'er the land.

Like flattery's voice, from yonder tower
Shall speak the genius of the hour,-
Shall bid the sons of mirth be glad,
Shall tell of sorrow to the sad,
Reflexion to the wise;

Shall add to superstitious fear,
And peal on rapt devotion's ear

The sounds of Paradise.

And all his changeful fate brings down
On suffering man below,

Shall murmur from its metal crown,
Or be it joy or woe.

Strike the stopper! out it goes,—
Heaven protect us!-now it flows.
Shooting, sparkling through the mould,
Now the fluid mass has rolled.

Through the moulded chambers gliding,
Now the metal fills the soil;
May the fashioned mass, subsiding,
Prove deserving of our toil.

Break me down the mighty mould,
It has reached its master's aim,
Let the longing eye behold

The created child of flame.
Break it down, though strong it fit,
Swing the hammer till it split.
Would we raise the living bell,

We must break its mortal shell.

The master knows the time to shiver
The moulded form with cunning hand-

Come, close your ranks, your counsel tell,
To bless and consecrate the bell-
CONCORDIA'S name may suit it well,
And wide may it extend the call
Of union and of peace to all;
Such, then, be its solemn name,
And this its object and its aim.

And now, with many a rope suspending,

Come, swing the monarch's weight on high,

By our last toil, its throne ascending,

To rule the azure canopy.