TO EVA AT THE SOUTH.

THE green grass is bowing,
The morning wind is in it,
"T is a tune worth thy knowing,
Though it change every minute.

'Tis a tune of the spring,
Every year plays it over
To the robins on the wing,
And to the pausing lover.

O'er ten thousand thousand acres

Goes light the nimble Zephyr,

The Flowers,tiny sect of Shakers,
Worship him ever.

Hark to the winning sound!

They summon thee, dearest,

Saying, "We have drest for thee the ground,

Nor yet thou appearest.

THE RIVER.

THERE is an inward voice, that in the stream
Lends forth its spirit to the listening ear,
And in a calm content it floweth on,

Like wisdom welcome with its own respect.
Clear in its breast lie all these beauteous thoughts,
It doth receive the green and graceful trees,

And the gray rocks smile in its peaceful arms,
And over all floats a serenest blue,

Which the mild heaven sheds down on it like rain.
O fair, sweet stream, thy undisturbed repose
Me beckons to thy front, and thou, vexed world, —
Thou other turbulent sphere where I have dwelt,
Diminished into distance, touch'st no more
My feelings here, than the soft swaying
Of the delicate wave parted in front,
As through the gentle element we move
Like shadows gliding through untroubled realms,
Disturbs these lily circles, these white bells.
And yet on thee shall wind come fiercely down,
Hail pelt thee with dull words, ice bind thee up;
And yet again, when the fierce rage is o'er,
O smiling river, shalt thou smile once more,
And as it were, even in thy depths, revere
The sage security thy nature wears.

VOL. III. NO. III.

LIFE.

Ir is a gay and glittering cloud,
Born in the early light of day,
It lies upon the gentle hills,
Rosy, and sweet, and far away.
42

THERE is a grace upon the waving trees,
A beauty in the wide and flowing sea,
A glory is there in the rushing breeze,
Yet what are all these fairy things to me,
What by the side of such an one as thee?
They weigh as dust against the purest gold,
And all the words of fine society,

And all the famous thoughts great men have told,
By side of thee seem dull, dull, heavy, and most cold.

If thou art lost to me, farewell, my heart!
There is one jewel for thy prizing here,
But how companionless and chill thou art,
If this great lustre, unto thee so dear,
Fall like an autumn leaf withered and sere,
And leave thee on the shore of time, alone.
So shall this living earth be thy true bier,

Its every sound a wretched, mournful tone,

And all thy passion's tears turned into hardest stone.

*

THE LAWS OF MENU.

[In pursuance of the design intimated in our Number for July, to give a series of ethnical scriptures, we subjoin our extracts from the Laws of Menu. We learn, from the preface of the translator, that "Vyasa, the son of Parasara, has decided that the Veda, with its Angas, or the six compositions deduced from it, the revealed system of medicine, the Puranas, or sacred histories, and the code of Menu, were four works of supreme authority, which ought never to be shaken by arguments merely human." The last, which is in blank verse, and is one of the oldest compositions extant, has been translated by Sir William Jones. It is believed by the Hindoos "to have been promulged in the beginning of time, by Menu, son or grandson of Brahma," and "first of created beings." Brahma is said to have "taught his laws to Menu in a hundred thousand verses, which Menu explained to the primitive world in the very words of the book now translated." Others affirm that they have undergone successive abridgments for the convenience of mortals, "while the gods of the lower heaven, and the band of celestial musicians, are engaged in studying the primary code."

A number of glosses or comments on Menu were composed by the Munis, or old philosophers, whose treatises, together with that before us, constitute the Dherma Sastra, in a collective sense, or Body of Law." Culluca Bhatta was one of the more modern of these.]

CUSTOM.

"Immemorial custom is transcendent law."

"The roots of the law are the whole Veda, the ordinances and moral practices of such as perfectly understand it, the immemorial customs of good men, and self-satisfaction."

"Immemorial custom is a tradition among the four pure classes, in a country frequented by gods, and at length is not to be distinguished from revelation."

TEMPERANCE.

"The resignation of all pleasures is far better than the attainment of them."

"The organs, being strongly attached to sensual delights, cannot so effectually be restrained by avoiding incentives to pleasure, as by a constant pursuit of divine knowledge."

"But, when one among all his [the Brahmin's] organs fails, by that single failure his knowledge of God passes away, as water flows through one hole in a leathern bottle."

In the following selections his gloss is for the most part omitted, but when retained is printed in Italics.