Far different these from every former scene;
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.
Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that
parting day,

Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin
round.

Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I
stand,

That called them from their native walks I see the rural virtues leave the land;

away;

When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round their bowers, and fondly looked
their last,

And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept; and still returned to
weep.

The good old sire the first prepared to go
To new found worlds, and wept for others' woe,
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wished for worlds beyond the grave;
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent, went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for a father's arms;
With louder plaints the mother spoke her
woes,

And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose,
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many
a tear,

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the
sail,

That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore and darken all the strand;
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness are there,
And piety with wishes placed above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly when sensual joys invade,
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride,
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me
80,

Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell!-and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Tornea's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,-

And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly Whether where equinoctial fervors glow;

dear,

Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.
O luxury! thou cursed by heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged are things like these for
thee!

How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigor not their own;

And winter wraps the polar world in snow,—
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigors of the inclement clime.
Aid slighted truth; with thy persuasive strain
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states of native strength pos-
essed-

Though very poor-may still be very blessed;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift de-

cay,

At every draught more large and large they As ocean sweeps the labored mole away;

grow,

A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe;
Till sapped their strength, and every part un-

บ

sound,

While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

AUTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS.

(From "The Land of Lorne.")

AY after day, as the autumn advances, the tint of the hills is getting deeper and richer; and by October, when the beech leaf yellows, and the oak leaf reddens, the dim purples and deep greens of the heather are perfect. Of all seasons in Lorne the late autumn is perhaps the most beautiful. The sea has a deeper hue, the sky a mellower light. There are long days of northerly wind, when every crag looks perfect, wrought in gray

and gold, and silvered with moss, when the high clouds turn luminous at the edges, when a thin film of hoar-frost gleams over the grass and heather, when the light burns rosy and faint over all the hills, from Morven to Cruachan, for hours before the sun goes down. Out of the ditch at the woodside flaps the mallard, as you pass in the gloaming, and standing by the side of the small mountain loch, you see the flock of teal rise, wheel thrice, and settle. The hills are desolate, for the sheep are being sheared. There is a feeling of frost in the air, and Ben Cruachan has a crown of snow.

When dead of winter comes, how wondrous look the hills in their white robes! The rouud red ball of the sun looks through the frosty steam. The far-off firth gleams strange and ghostly, with a sense of mysterious distance. The mountain loch is a sheet of blue, on which you may disport in perfect solitude from morn to night, with the hills white on all sides, save where the broken snow shows the rusted leaves of the withered bracken. A deathly stillness and a deathlike beauty reign everywhere, and few living things are discernible, save the hare plunging heavily out of her form in the snow, or the rabbit scuttling off in a snowy spray, or the small birds piping disconsolate on the trees and dykes.

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

A SWEDISH COUNTRY CHURCH.

(From the Introduction to "The Children of The Lord's Supper.")

"REQUENT, too, are the village churches, standing by the roadsides, each in its own little garden of Gethsemane. In the parish register great events are doubtless recorded. Some old king was christened or buried in that church; and a little sexton, with a rusty key, shows you the baptismal font, or the coffin. In the churchyard are a few flowers, and much green grass; and daily the shadow of the church spire, with its long tapering finger, counts the tombs, representing a dial-plate of human life, on which the hours and minutes are the graves of men. The stones are flat, and large, and low, and perhaps sunken, like the roofs of old houses. On some are armorial bearings; on others, only the initials of the poor tenants, with a date, as on the roofs of Dutch cottages. They all sleep with their heads to the westward. Each held a lighted taper in his hand when he died, and in his coffin were placed his little heart-treasures, and a piece of money for his last journey. Babes that came lifeless into the world were carried in the arms of gray-haired old men to the only cradle they ever slept in; and in the shroud of the dead mother were laid the little garments of the child that lived and died in her bosom. And over this scene the village pastor looks from his window in the stillness of midnight, and says in his heart: "How quietly they rest, all the departed!"

Near the churchyard gate stands a poor-box, fastened to a post by iron bands, and secured by a padlock, with a sloping wooden roof to keep off the rain. If it be Sunday, the peasants sit on the church steps and con their psalm books. Others are coming down the road with their beloved pastor, who talks to them of holy things from beneath his broad-brimmed hat. He speaks of fields and harvests, and of the parable of the sower that went forth to sow. He leads them to the Good Shepherd, and to the pleasant pastures of the spirit-land. He is their patriarch, and, like Melchizedek, both priest and king, though he has no other throne than the church pulpit. The women carry psalm books in their hands, wrapped in silk handkerchiefs, and listen devoutly to the good man's words; but the young men, like Gallio, care for none of these things. They are busy counting the plaits in the kirtles of the peasant girls, their number being an indication of the wearer's wealth. It may end in a wedding.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.