A covering mantle, given,
The weary to enshroud.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
Revere the pale still brow,
The meekly drooping head,
The long hair's willowy flow!

Ye know not what ye do,
That call the slumberer back,
From the world unseen by you,
Unto Life's dim faded track.

Her soul is far away,

In her childhood's land, perchance, Where her young sisters play, Where shines her mother's glance.

Some old sweet native sound
Her spirit haply weaves;

A harmony profound

Of woods with all their leaves:

A murmur of the sea,

A laughing tone of streams:-
Long may her sojourn be
In the music-land of dreams!

Each voice of love is there,
Each gleam of beauty fled,
Each lost one still more fair-
Oh! lightly, lightly tread!

HIGHLAND MARY.

MRS. NORTON.

I WOULD I were the light fern growing
Beneath my Highland Mary's tread,
I would I were the green tree throwing
Its shadow o'er her gentle head!
I would I were a wild flower springing
Where my sweet Mary loves to rest,
That she might pluck me while she's singing,
And place me on her snowy breast!

I would I were in yonder heaven

A silver star, whose soft dim light Would rise to bless each summer even, And watch my Mary all the night! I would, beneath these small white fingers, I were the lute her breath has fannedThe gentle lute, whose soft note lingers, As loath to leave her fairy hand!

Ah, happy things! ye may not wander
From Scotland to some darker sky,
But ever live unchanging yonder,
To happiness and Mary nigh!
While I at midnight sadly weeping
Upon its deep transparent blue,
Can only gaze while all are sleeping,

And dream my Mary watches too!

THE PILGRIMS OF THE WORLD.

WILLIAM HOWITT.

I SEE a city of the East,

A city great and wide;

The evening sunlight richly falls
On its pinnacles of pride.

Its marble founts and porticoes,
Its towers and temples vast,
And its pillars of memorial tall,
Shadows of beauty cast.

The murmur of its multitudes

Is like the ocean's voice;

Yet may'st thou hear the children's cries, That in streets and squares rejoice.

How glorious looks that antique town!
How pleasant is its din!

But the evening falls-the gates are closed,
And have shut three strangers in.

Their steps are faint, their garbs are quaint,

Their travel has been sore:

With what a wild and hungry glance
They stalk by every door!

On goes the first-What cries are those?
I seem at once to hear

Rebellious shouts, despairing rage,
Wo, agony, and fear.

The second, with a mutter'd curse,
Down tower and house has hurl'd;
And the third has left a silence there,
That shall outlast the world.

Mine eye is on a broad, rich realm,
On pleasant fields and downs-
On beaten roads that run, like veins,
Unto a thousand towns.

What green and cattle-traversed hills!
What old majestic woods!

How lightly glide those merchant-sails
Along the gleaming floods !

But that pilgrim three !—that fearful three!
Again I see them, there!
And banners rise, and dying cries,

And darkness, and despair.

What cursed vision have I seen?

Is this the land they paced?
This, where the ruins lie in heaps

Along the wormwood waste?

This-where the wild ass snuffs the wind.

The silent ostrich stands;

And the column, like a ruin'd king,

Frowns proudly on the sands?

A home! there is a happy home!

An old, ancestral tower; And blessed is the family

That peoples it this hour.

Honours their valiant fathers won,
Fair are their lands and wide;

But the love that is in their kindred souls,
That is their wealth and pride.

Now vengeance on the wandering fiends!
Hither, too, are they come!

I see them lowering at the gate,
And a shadow wraps that home.

Oh! there are tears-wild, burning tears,

Terror, and scorn, and hate ;

Mad words, dark looks, sad breaking hearts, And partings desperate.

Can no one stop those wizards curst?
Can no one break their power?
The green boughs shrivel as they pass,
Their footsteps scorch the flower.

Stand back! stand back ! thou desperate man !
Wouldst thou their progress thwart ?

Those feet have stood in Adam's bower;
Those hands laid waste his heart.

Those gaunt forms round the world have gone,

Through centuries of guilt,