FEBRUARY.

COME when the rains

Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice,
While the slant sun of February pours

Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops,
That glimmer with an amethystine light.

All, all is light;

Light without shade. But all shall pass away With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks, Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve

Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont.

W. C. Bryant.

God forgive me! But I've thought

A thousand times that if I had His power,

Or He my love, we'd have a different world
From this we live in.

F. G. Holland.

What matters it!

A few years more,

Life's surge, so restless heretofore,
Shall break upon the unknown shore !

Such dream as in a poet's soul might start, Musing of old loves while the moon doth set: Her hair was not more sunny than her heart, Though like a natural golden coronet

It circled her dear head, with careless art Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lent To its frank grace a richer ornament.

February 3.

No fear that any poet dies unknown,

J. R. Lowell.

Whose songs are written in the hearts that know
And love him, though their partial verdict show
The tenderness that moves the critic's blame.
Those few have power to lift his name above
Forgetfulness, to grant that noblest fame
Which sets its trumpet to the lips of Love!
Bayard Taylor.