DUTCH PICTURES.

Where boats are passing, as in dream,

Through sliding doors, that show the stream
Where we suspected none;

By carven casements, red and blue,

Those quaint home-glimpses meet the view
Dutch painters loved of old;

Rich pictures flash within the frame—
A jewell❜d maiden carrying game,
A smoke-wreath'd sire, an aged dame
In head-dress of wrought gold.

And here we stop to rest and dine—
Our ripe dessert of fruit and wine
Set in the open air.

We watch the western glow awhile
The waters of their gloom beguile,
Oft greeted by the jest and smile
Of peasants from the fair.

Leaving fair Delf with the light,
By little slips of water bright

With moonbeams, on we passed,
From bridge to bridge, from mill to mill,
Where cattle glimmer through the chill,
While water-vapours, silvery still,

We gain La Haye at last.

So dawns fair Holland on a mind
To names and data disinclined,
Or powerless to hold;
Whose favourite pictures ever float
Below the far-famed works of note,
By dark canal and market boat,

And Delf's casements old.

195

C. M. GEMMER.

DARKNESS melting into dawn,
As the mists seem downward drawn ;
Grey to blue and blue to white,
Surging in like waves of light.
In the eastward, like an eye,
The sun sends glances up on high,
Flooding all the purpled sky;
Then he bathes the mountain tops,
In a golden shower of drops,
Until hill, and field, and stream,
Are folded in the mystic gleam.

THE SPRING OF THE YEAR.

Snowy summits thus transfigured,
Smitten with the rosy glow,
Answer to the depths below;
While the rush of many torrents,
Bounding in their downward flow,
Seem to pause as life awakens ;—
Knots of peasants moving slow
To their labours, and the cowbells,
Waving gently to and fro,
Sound the sweetest of refrains
As o'er the grassy slopes they go.

197

J.

THE SPRING OF THE YEAR.

SIT and talk with the mountain streams
In the beautiful Spring of the year,
When the violet gleams the golden sunbeams,
And whispers, "Come look for me here"
In the beautiful Spring of the year.

I will shew you an odorous nook

Where the censers of morning are swung :
Nature will lend you her bell and her book
Where the chimes of the forest are hung-
And the censers of morning are swung.

Come and breathe in this heaven-sent air
The breeze that the wild bird inhales,
Come and forget that life has a care,

In these exquisite mountain gales
The breeze that the wild bird inhales.

J. T. FIELDS.

The merry

leaves along the lane,

The little bud grown ripe ;

And look, my love, upon the bough

Hark, how she calleth to me now,-
Pipe! pipe !

THE SICK MAN.

Ah! weary is the sun :

Love is an idle thing;

But, Bird, thou restless one,

What ails thee, wandering?

THE SICK MAN AND THE BIRDS.

THE SWALLOW.

By shore and sea I come and go
To seek I know not what; and lo!
On no man's eaves I sit.

But voices bid me rise once more,

To flit again by sea and shore,—
Flit! flit!

THE SICK MAN.

This is earth's bitter cup :-
Only to seek not know.
But thou, that strivest up,
Why dost thou carol so?

THE LARK.

A secret Spirit gifteth me
With song and wing that lifteth me,-
A Spirit for whose sake,
Striving amain to reach the sky,
Still to the old dark earth I cry-
"Wake! wake!"

THE SICK MAN.

My hope hath lost its wing.

Thou, that to Night dost call,

How hast thou heart to sing
Thy tears made musical?

THE NIGHTINGALE.

Alas for me! a dry desire
Is all my song,—a waste of fire

That will not fade nor fail;

To me, dim shapes of ancient crime Moan through the windy ways of time, "Wail! wail !"

199