The visions of my youth are past—
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I've tried the world-it wears no more
The colouring of romance it wore.
Yet well has Nature kept the truth
She promised to my earliest youth;
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shews freshly to my sobered eye
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away, And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold My ashes in the embracing mould, (If haply the dark will of fate Indulge my life so long a date) May come for the last time to look Upon my childhood's favourite brook, Then dimly on my eye shall gleam The sparkle of thy dancing stream, And faintly on my ear shall fall Thy prattling current's merry call; Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright As when thou metst my infant sight.

As

And I shall sleep-and on thy side, ages after ages glide, Children their early sports shall try, And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gaily shalt play and glitter here;
Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shall pass;
And, singing down thy narrow glen,

Shalt mock the fading race of men.

A SONG OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND.

COME, take our boy, and we will go
Before our cabin door;

The winds shall bring us, as they blow,
The murmurs of the shore;

And we will kiss his young blue eyes,
And I will sing him, as he lies,
Songs that were made of yore:

I'll sing, in his delighted ear,
The island-lays thou lov'st to hear.

And thou, while stammering I repeat,

Thy country's tongue shalt teach;
'Tis not so soft, but far more sweet
Than my own native speech;
For thou no other tongue didst know,
When, scarcely twenty moons ago,
Upon Tahité's beach,

Thou cam'st to woo me to be thine, With many a speaking look and sign.

I knew thy meaning-thou didst praise My eyes, my locks of jet;

Ah! well for me they won thy gaze,— But thine were fairer yet!

I'm glad to see my infant wear

Thy soft blue eyes and sunny hair,

And when my sight is met

By his white brow and blooming cheek, I feel a joy I cannot speak.

Come, talk of Europe's maids with me, Whose necks and cheeks, they tell, Outshine the beauty of the sea,

White foam and crimson shell.

I'll shape like theirs my simple dress,
And bind like them each jetty tress,

A sight to please thee well;
And for my dusky brow will braid
A bonnet like an English maid.

Come, for the soft, low sunlight callsWe lose the pleasant hours;

'Tis lovelier than these cottage walls— That seat among the flowers. And I will learn of thee a prayer

To Him who gave a home so fair,

A lot so blest as ours

The God who made for thee and me

This sweet lone isle amid the sea.

THE HUNTER'S SERENADE.

THY bower is finished, fairest !

Fit bower for hunter's brideWhere old woods overshadow

The

green savannah's side.

I've wandered long and wandered far, And never have I met,

In all this lovely western land,

A spot so lovely yet.

But I shall think it fairer

When thou art come to bless,

With thy sweet eyes and silver voice, Its silent loveliness.

For thee the wild grape glistens

On sunny knoll and tree, And stoops the slim papaya

With yellow fruit for thee. For thee the duck, on glassy stream, The prairie-fowl shall die,

My rifle for thy feast shall bring

The wild swan from the sky.

The forest's leaping panther,
Fierce, beautiful, and fleet,
Shall yield his spotted hide to be
A carpet for thy feet.

I know, for thou hast told me,
Thy maiden love of flowers;
Ah! those that deck thy gardens
Are pale compared with ours.
When our wide woods and mighty lawns

Bloom to the April skies,

The earth has no more gorgeous sight

To shew to human eyes.

In meadows red with blossoms,

All summer long, the bee

Murmurs, and loads his yellow thighs,
For thee, my love, and me.

Or, wouldst thou gaze at tokens
Of ages long ago?

Our old oaks stream with mosses,
And sprout with mistletoe ;

And mighty vines, like serpents, climb

The giant sycamore;

And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries

Cumber the forest floor;

And in the great savannah

The solitary mound,

Built by the elder world, o'erlooks

The loneliness around

Come, thou hast not forgotten

Thy pledge and promise quite,

With many blushes murmured,
Beneath the evening light.