THE SNOWDROP.

THE SNOWDROP.

Already now the snowdrop dares appear,
The first pale blossom of the unripened year."

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HOU first-born of the year's delight,
Pride of the dewy glade,

In vernal green and virgin white
Thy vestal robes arrayed.

'Tis not because thy drooping form
Sinks graceful on its nest,
When chilly shades from gathering storm

Affright thy tender breast.

Nor for yon river islet wild

Beneath the willow spray,

Where, like the ringlets of a child,
Thou weav'st thy circle gay ;

"Tis not for these I love thee dear-
Thy shy, averted smiles
To Fancy bode a joyous year,
One of Life's fairy isles.

They twinkle to the wintry moon,
And cheer th' ungenial day,
And tell us, all will glisten soon

As green and bright as they.

1

WINTER WALK AT NOON.

THE night was Winter in his roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now, at noon, Upon the southern side of the slant hills,

And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,

And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck

The dazzling splendour of the scene below.

The redbreast warbles still, but is content

With slender notes, and more than half suppressed :
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice,
That tinkle in the withered leaves below.

Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here

May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,

And Learning wiser grow without his books.

What prodigies can power Divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in sight of inattentive man?
Familiar with the effect, we slight the cause,

And, in the constancy of Nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,

And renovation of a faded world,

WINTER WALK AT NOON.

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All we behold is miracle; but, seen

So duly, all is miracle in vain.

Where now the vital energy that moved,

While Summer was, the pure and subtle lymph
Through the imperceptible meandering veins

Of leaf and flower? It sleeps; and the icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impressed

A cold stagnation on the intestine tide.

But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restored. These naked shoots,"
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,

Shall put their graceful foliage on again.

And more aspiring, and with ampler spread,

Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost.

Then each, in its peculiar honours clad,

Shall publish, even to the distant eye,
Its family and tribe.

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man
In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand transition, that there lives and works

A soul in all things; and that soul is God.
The beauties of the wilderness are His,

That make so gay the solitary place,

Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms
That cultivation glories in are His.

He sets the bright procession on its way,

And marshals all the order of the year;

He marks the bounds which Winter may not pass,

And blunts his pointed fury; in its case,

E

Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ,
Uninjured, with inimitable art;

And, ere one flowery season fades and dies,
Designs the blooming wonders of the next.

HYMN FOR JANUARY.

WHEN Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil ;
When Summer's balmy showers refresh the mower's toil;
When Winter binds in frosty chains the fallow and the flood,
In God the Earth rejoiceth still, and owns her Maker good.

The birds that wake the morning, and those that love the shade ;
The winds that sweep the mountain or lull the drowsy glade,
The Sun that from his amber bower rejoiceth on his way,
The Moon and Stars, their Master's name in silent pomp display.

Shall Man, the lord of Nature, expectant of the sky,
Shall Man, alone unthankful, his little praise deny?

No, let the year forsake his course, the seasons cease to be,
Thee, Master, must we always love, and Saviour, honour Thee.

The flowers of Spring may wither, the hope of Summer fade,
The Autumn droop in Winter, the birds forsake the shade;
The winds be lulled the Sun and Moon forget their old decree,
But we in Nature's latest hour, O Lord! will cling to Thee.