TO MY MOTHER.

BY MISS LUCRETIA M. DAVIDSON.

O THOU whose care sustained my infant years,
And taught my prattling lip each note of love;
Whose soothing voice breathed comfort to my fears,
And round my brow hope's brightest garland wove;
To thee my lay is due, the simple song,

Which Nature gave me at life's opening day;
To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong,
Whose heart indulgent will not spurn my lay.

O say, amid this wilderness of life,

What bosom would have throbbed like thine for me?
Who would have smiled responsive? who in grief,
Would e'er have felt, and, feeling, grieve like thee?
Who would have guarded, with a falcon eye,
Each trembling footstep, or each sport of fear?
Who would have marked my bosom bounding high,
And clasped me to her heart, with love's bright tear?

Who would have hung around my sleepless couch,
And fanned, with anxious hand, my burning brow?
Who would have fondly pressed my fevered lip,
In all the agony of love and wo?

None but a mother-none but one like thee,
Whose bloom has faded in the midnight watch,
Whose eye, for me, has lost its witchery,

Whose form has felt disease's mildew touch.

Yes, thou hast lighted me to health and life,
By the bright lustre of thy youthful bloom;
Yes, thou hast wept so oft o'er every grief,

That wo hath traced thy brow with marks of gloom.
O then, to thee, this rude and simple song,

Which breathes of thankfulness and love for thee,
To thee, my mother, shall this lay belong,
Whose life is spent in toil and care for me.

WHAT IS THAT, MOTHER?

BY G. W. DOANE.

WHAT is that, mother?—

The lark, my child.-

The morn has but just looked out, and smiled,
When he starts from his humble, grassy nest,
And is up and away with the dew on his breast,
And a hymn in his heart, to yon pure bright sphere,
To warble it out in his Maker's ear.

Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays
Tuned, like the lark's, to thy Maker's praise.

What is that, mother?

The dove, my son.

And that low, sweet voice, like a widow's moan,
Is flowing out from her gentle breast,

Constant and pure by that lonely nest,

As the wave is poured from some crystal urn,
For her distant dear one's quick return.

Ever, my son, be thou like the dove,

In friendship as faithful, as constant in love.

What is that, mother?—

The eagle, boy,

Proudly careering his course of joy,
Firm in his own mountain vigour relying,
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying;
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward, right on.
Boy, may the eagle's flight ever be thine,
Onward, and upward, true to the line.

What is that, mother?

The swan, my love.

He is floating down from his native grove,
No loved one now, no nestling nigh;
He is floating down by himself to die;

Death darkens his eye, and unplumes his wings,
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings.
Live so, my love, that when death shall come,
Swan-like and sweet, it may waft thee home.

THE EAGLE.

BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.

SAIL on, thou lone imperial bird,
Of quenchless eye and tireless wing;
How is thy distant coming heard

As the night's breezes round thee ring;
Thy course was 'gainst the burning sur
In his extremest glory! How!
Is thy unequalled daring done,

Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now?

Or hast thou left thy rocking dome,
Thy roaring crag, thy lightning pine,
To find some secret, meaner home,
Less stormy and unsafe than thine?
Else why thy dusky pinions bend

So closely to this shadowy world,
And round thy scorching glances send,
As wishing thy broad pens were furled?

Yet lonely is thy shattered nest,
Thy eyrie desolate, though high;
And lonely thou, alike, at rest,

Or soaring in thy upper sky.

The golden light that bathes thy plumes,
On thine interminable flight,

Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs,

And makes the north's ice-mountains bright.

So come the eagle-hearted down,

So come the proud and high to earth,
When life's night-gathering tempests frown
Over their glory and their mirth;
So quails the mind's undying eye,

That bore unveiled fame's noontide sun;

So man seeks solitude, to die,

His high place left, his triumphs done.

So round the residence of power,

A cold and joyless lustre shines,

And on life's pinnacles will lower

Clouds dark as bathe the eagle's pines;
But O, the mellow light that pours

From God's pure throne-the light that saves!
It warms the spirit as it soars,

And sheds deep radiance round our graves.

THE WANDERER OF AFRICA.

BY ALONZO LEWIS.

HE launched his boat where the dark waves flow, Through the desert that never was white with snow, When the wind was still, and the sun shone bright, And the stream glowed red with the morning light. He had sat in the cool of the palm's broad shade, And drank of the fountain of Kafnah's glade,