And my native land! whose magical name
Thrills to my heart like electric flame;

The home of my childhood-the haunts of my prime;
All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time,
When the feelings were young and the world was new,
Like the fresh bowers of paradise opening to view!
All-all now forsaken, forgotten, or gone;

And I a lone exile, remembered of none,

My high aims abandoned, and good acts undone—
Aweary of all that is under the sun;

With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan,
I fly to the desert, afar from man.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,
With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife,
The proud man's frown, and the base man's fear,
And the scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear,
And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,
Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;
When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,
And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,
O, there, there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the desert alone to ride.

There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle's speed,
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand-
The only law of the desert land;

But 'tis not the innocent to destroy,

For I hate the huntsman's savage joy.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
Away, away from the dwellings of men,

By the wild deer's haunt and the buffalo's glen,

By valleys remote, where the oribi* plays,

Where the gnu,* the gazelle, and the hartbeest* graze, And the gemsbok and eland, unhunted, recline

*

By the skirts of gray forests o'ergrown with wild vine,
And the elephant browses at peace in his wood,
And the river horse gambols unscared in the flood,
And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

In the Vley † where the wild ass is drinking his fill.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
O'er the brown Karroo, ‡ where the bleating cry

*

Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,
In fields seldom freshened by moisture or rain;

And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds, like a horseman that travels in haste;
And the vulture in circles wheels high overhead,
Greedy to scent and to gorge on the dead;
And the grisly wolf and the shrieking jackal
Howl for their prey at the evening fall;
And the fiend-like laugh of hyenas grim
Fearfully startles the twilight dim.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
Away-away, in the wilderness vast,
Where the white man's foot hath never passed,
And the quivered Koranna, or Bechuan, §
Hath rarely crossed, with his roving clan;

The oribi, the gnu, the hartbeest, the gemsbok, the eland, and the springbok are all animals of the genus antelope. Most of them are de scribed in the Penny Magazine, article Antelope.

+ Vley, a pool of fresh water.

The Karroo is a desert plain of South Africa.

The Bechuan and Koranna are names of Hottentot tribes.

A region of emptiness, howling and drear,

Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear
;
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,
And the bat flitting forth from his old hollow stone
Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root,
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot,
And the bitter melon, for food and drink,
Is the pilgrim's fare by the Salt Lake's brink;
A region of doubt, where no river glides,
Nor rippling brook with osiered sides,
Nor reedy pool, nor mossy fountain,
Nor shady tree, nor cloud-capped mountain,
Are found, to refresh the aching eye;
But the barren earth, and the burning sky,
And the black horizon round and round,
Without a living sight or sound,

Tell to the heart, in its pensive mood,
That this is-Nature's Solitude.

And here, while the night-winds round me sigh,
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit apart by the caverned stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,
And feel as a moth in the mighty hand

That spread the heavens and heaved the land,—
A "still small voice" comes through the wild,
Like a father consoling his fretful child,
Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear-
Saying, "MAN IS DISTANT, BUT God is near.”

[The Rev. JOHN MOULTRIE, an English clergyman, is the author of My Brother's Grave and other Poems, The Dream of Life and other Poems. They are graceful and pleasing productions, of a pure moral tone, and expressing much tenderness of feeling.]

I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old,
With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould.
They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears;
That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish
years.

I cannot say how this may be; I know his face is fair,

And yet his sweetest comeliness is his sweet and serious air;
I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth me,
But loveth yet his mother more, with grateful fervency;
But that which others most admire is the thought which fills
his mind;

The food for grave, inquiring speech he every where doth find.
Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk;
He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children talk.
Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball,
But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimics all.
His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplexed
With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the

next.

He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teaches him to pray; And strange, and sweet, and solemn, then, are the words which

he will say.

O, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years like me, A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be;

And when I look into his eyes, and press his thoughtful brow, I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now.

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three;
I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be,

How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my

knee:

I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his brother's, keen, Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his has ever been; But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling; And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.

When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street,

Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and

sweet.

A playfellow is he to all, and yet with cheerful tone

Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone.
His presence is like sunshine sent, to gladden home and hearth,
To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our mirth.
Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his heart may

prove

As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for earthly love: And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes must dim, God comfort us for all the love that we shall lose in him.

I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot tell, For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell.

To us for fourteen anxious months his infant smiles were given, And then he bid farewell to earth, and went to live in heaven. I cannot tell what form his is, what looks he weareth now, Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow; The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth

feel,

Are numbered with the secret things which God will not reveal. But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest, Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast: I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh,

But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy forever fresh. I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings, And soothe him with a song that breathes of heaven's divines:

things.