That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou as a gallant bark, from Albion's coast,
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed,)
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle,
Where spices breathe and brighter seasons smile;
There sits quiescent on the floods, that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay,
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the
shore

"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distressed,
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed,
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass
lost;

And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.
Yet O, the thought that thou art safe, and he!-
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise,—
The son of parents passed into the skies.

And now, farewell!-Time, unrevoked, has run
His wonted course; yet what I wished is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again,
To have renewed the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;

And, while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft,
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

WILLIAM COWPER.

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I REMEMBER, I remember

The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember

The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set

With pure heart newly stamped from nature's "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall

Had borrowed the child to go a-begging with, | And
but I'd rather see him laid out in his
coffin !

Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys!
I'll break every bone of 'em I come near,
Go home · you 're spilling the porter go home
Tommy Jones, go along home with
your beer.

This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever
since my name was Betty Morgan,

He's

And

his nose is still a good un, though the bridge is broke, by his falling on a pewter pint pot;

got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and very large teeth for his age; quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid on the Drury Lane stage. And then he has got such dear winning ways but Ọ, I never, never shall see him no more!

Them vile Savoyards! they lost him once before O dear! to think of losing him just after nussall along of following a monkey and an ing him back from death's door! organ:

O my Billy - my head will turn right round

Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny!

if he's got kiddynapped with them Ital- And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was ians,

They'll make him a plaster parish image boy,

spent in plums, and sixty for a child is too many.

they will, the outlandish tatterdemalions. And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us Billy where are you, Billy? I'm as hoarse — all, and, drat him! made a seize of our hog.

as a crow, with screaming for ye, you
young sorrow !

And sha'n't have half a voice, no more I sha'n't,
for crying fresh herrings to-morrow.

O Billy, you're bursting my heart in two, and my life won't be of no more vally,

It's no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he's such a blunderin' drunken old dog; The last time he was fetched to find a lost child he was guzzling with his bell at the Crown,

If I'm to see other folks' darlin's, and none And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father about Town.

of mine, playing like angels in our
alley,

And what shall I do but cry out my eyes, when
I looks at the old three-legged chair
As Billy used to make coach and horses of, and
there a'n't no Billy there!

I would run all the wide world over to find him,
if I only knowed where to run,

Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through stealing a penny bun,

The Lord forbid of any child of mine! I think it would kill me raily,

Billy - where are you, Billy, I say? come, Billy,
come home, to your best of Mothers!
I'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys,
they drive so, they'd run over their own.
Sisters and Brothers.

Or maybe he's stole by some chimbly-sweeping
wretch, to stick fast in narrow flues and
what not,

And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketched, and the chimbly's red hot.

To find my Bill holdin' up his little innocent O, I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two longin' eyes on his face.

hand at the Old Bailey.

For though I say it as ought n't, yet I will say,
you may search for miles and mileses
And not find one better brought up, and more
pretty behaved, from one end to t'other
of St. Giles's.

And if I called him a beauty, it's no lie, but
only as a mother ought to speak;
You never set eyes on a more handsomer face,
only it has n't been washed for a week;
As for hair, though it 's red, it's the most nicest
hair when I've time to just show it the
comb;

I'll owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides,

For he 's my darlin' of darlin's, and if he don't soon come back, you'll see me drop stone dead on the place.

I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and would n't I hug him and kiss him!

Lawk! I never knew what a precious he was but a child don't not feel like a child till you miss him.

Why, there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin!

as will only bring him safe and sound But let me get him home, with a good grip of home.

He's blue eyes, and not to be called a squint,

though a little cast he 's certainly got ;

his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin!

THOMAS HOOD.

A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

'T WAS the night before Christmas, when all He had a broad face and a little round belly

through the house

That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of

jelly.
He was chubby and plump,
elf;

a right jolly old

And I laughed, when I saw him, in spite of my

self.

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a
jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a
whistle,

Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
When what to my wondering eyes should ap- But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;

sight,

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!"

CLEMENT C. MOORE.

THE FROST.

THE Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,
And he said, "Now I shall be out of sight;
So through the valley and over the height
In silence I'll take my way.

I will not go like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy as they!"

Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest,

And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around, He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a
bound.

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,

dressed

With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread

A coat of mail, that it need not fear

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes The downward point of many a spear

and soot ;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.

He went to the windows of those who slept,

His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how And over each pane like a fairy crept:

merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry ;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the

snow.

Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,
By the light of the moon were seen
Most beautiful things. There were flowers and
trees,

There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees,