Work, work, my boy, and murmur not, There's duty for all those, my son, The hungry bird his food must seek, The wind disturbs the sleeping lake, And so the active breath of life Should stir our dull and sluggard wills, For are we not created rife With health that stagnant torpor kills? I doubt if he who lolls his head Where Idleness and Plenty meet, Enjoys his pillow or his bread, As those who earn the meals they eat. And man is never half so blest As when the busy day is spent, God grant thee but a due reward, A guerdon portion fair and just ; And then ne'er think thy station hard, ELIZA COOK, 1818— THE RIVER. INFANT of the weeping hills, Nursling of the springs and rills, Wimpling, dimpling, staying never,— Lisping, gurgling, ever going, Lipping, slipping, ever flowing, Breaking, gushing, Narrowing green against the bank, Outward boiling, Fret, in rough shingly shallows wide, Thus from darkness weeping out, Flows our infant Life away, Murmuring now the checks about, Singing now in onward play; Deepening, whirling, Darkly swirling Downward suck'd in eddying cover, Boiling with tumultuous loves; Oh to be a boy once more, Curly-headed, sitting singing 'Midst a thousand flowrets springing, In the sunny days of yore, In the sunny world remote, With feelings opening in their dew, And fairy wonders ever new, And all the budding growths of thought! Oh, to be a boy, yet be From all my early follies free! But were I skill'd in prudent lore, Short our threescore years and ten, Yet, oh, from age to age, that we Might rise a day old earth to see! Mountains, high with nodding firs, O'er you the clouded crystal stirs, Fresh as of old, how fresh and sweet! And here the flowerets at my feet. Daisy, daisy, wet with dew, And all ye little bells of blue, I know you all; thee, clover bloom, I The rise and fall of realms and kings, To know of earth's diviner state : How speeds the Church, with horns of light, Joy light the waving wings of Time. THOMAS AIRD, 1802— LIFE'S MUTATIONS. As waves the grass upon the fields to-day, That soon the wasting scythe shall sweep away; As smiles the floweret in the morning dew, That eve's chill blast in blighted death may strew, Thus in brief glory spring the sons of clay, Thus bloom a while, then wither and decay. I saw an infant in its robe of white, It clapp'd its hands when tones of mirth went by, |