STOOP to my window, my beautiful dove!
Thy daily visits hath touched my love!
I watch thy coming, and list thy note
That stirs so low in thy mellow throat,
And my joy is high,

To catch the glance of thy gentle eye.

Why dost thou sit on the heated eaves,
And forsake the wood with its freshened leaves?
Why dost thou haunt the sultry street,
When the paths of the forest are cool and sweet?
How canst thou bear

This noise of people-this breezeless air?

Thou, alone, of the feathered race
Dost look unscared on the human face;
Thou, alone, with a wing to flee,

Dost love with man in his haunts to be;
And the gentle dove'

6

Has become a name for trust and love

A holy gift is thine, sweet bird!

Thou 'rt named with childhood's earliest word; Thou 'rt linked with all that is fresh and wild In the prisoned thoughts of the city child— And thy even wings

Are its brightest image of moving things.

It is no light chance. Thou art set apart
Wisely by Him who tamed thy heart,
To stir the love for the bright and fair,
That else were sealed in the crowded air-
I sometimes dream

Angelic rays from thy pinions stream.

Come then, ever, when daylight leaves
The page I read, to my humble eaves;
And wash thy breast in the hollow spout,
Aud murmur thy low sweet music out-
I hear and see

Lessons of heaven, sweet bird, in thee!

A BRIDAL SERENADE.

Anoo.

WILT thou not waken, Bride of May,

While the flow'rs are fresh, and the sweet bells chime?

Listen, and learn from my roundelay

How all Life's pilot boats sail'd, one day,

A match with Time.

Love sat on a lotus-leaf afloat,

And saw old Time in his loaded boat;
Slowly he cross'd Life's narrow tide,

While Love sat clapping his wings, and cried

'Who will pass Time?'

Patience came first; but soon was gone,
With helm and sail to help Time on ;
Care and grief could not lend an oar,

And Prudence said, while he staid on the shore, 'I wait for Time.'

Hope fill'd with flow'rs her cork-tree bark, And lighted its helm with a glow-worm's spark:

Then Love, when he saw her bark fly past, Said, 'Lingering Time will soon be pass'd'Hope outspeeds Time!'

Wit went nearest Old Time to pass,
With his diamond oar and boat of glass:
A feathery dart from his store he drew,
And shouted, while far and swift it flew,
'Oh, Mirth kills Time!'

But Time sent the feathery arrows back;
Hope's boat of amaranths miss'd its track;
Then Love bad his butterfly pilots move,
And laughingly said, "They shall see how Love
Can conquer Time!'

His gossamer sails he spread with speed—
But Time has wings when Time has need;
Swiftly he cross'd Life's sparkling tide,
And only Memory staid to chide

Unpitying Time!

Wake and listen, then, Bride of May!
Listen, and heed thy minstrel's rhyme;
Still for thee some bright hours stay,
For it was a hand like thine, they say,

Gave wings to Time.

LIGHT.

W. Palmer.

FROM the quickened womb of the primal gloom The sun rolled black and bare,

Till I wove him a nest for his Ethiop breast,
Of the threads of my golden hair;

And when the broad tent of the firmament
Arose on its airy spars,

I pencilled the hue of its matchless blue,
And spangled it round with stars.

I painted the flowers of the Eden bowers,
And their leaves of living green;

And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyes
Of Eden's virgin queen.

And when the fiend's art on her trustful heart
Had fastened its mortal spell,

In the silvery sphere of the first-born tear

To the trembling earth I fell.

When the waves that burst o'er a world accursed

Their work of wrath had sped,

And the ark's lone few-the tried and true, Came forth among the dead.

With the wondrous charms of my braided beams I bade their terrors cease,

As I wrote on the roll of the storm's dark scroll

God's covenant of peace.

Like a pall at rest on a pulseless breast
Night's funeral shadow slept,

Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plains

Their lonely vigils kept,

When I flashed on their sight the heralds bright Of heaven's redeeming plan,

As they chanted the morn of a Saviour born-
Joy, joy, to the outcast, man!

Equal favor I shew to the lofty and low,
On the just and unjust I descend;

E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness and tears,

Feel my smile-the blest smile of a friend. Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced,

As the rose in the garden of kings;
At the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear,
And lo! the gay butterfly's wings.

The desolate morn, like a mourner forlorn,
Conceals all the pride of her charms,