Now wanton'd lost in flags and reeds,
Now, starting into sight,

Pursued the swallow o'er the meads
With scarce a slower flight.

It was the time when Ouse display'd
His lilies newly blown;

Their beauties I intent survey'd,
And one I wish'd my own.

With cane extended far I sought
To steer it close to land;

But still the prize, though nearly caught,
Escap'd my eager hand.

Beau mark'd my unsuccessful pains

With fix'd, considerate face,

And puzzling set his puppy brains
To comprehend the case.

But with a cherup clear and strong,
Dispersing all his dream,

I thence withdrew, and follow'd long
The windings of the stream.

My ramble ended, I return'd;
Beau, trotting far before,

The floating wreath again discern'd,
And plunging left the shore.

I saw him with that lily cropp'd

Impatient swim to meet

My quick approach, and soon he dropp'd

The treasure at my feet.

Charm'd with the sight, "The world," I cried,

"Shall hear of this thy deed;

My dog shall mortify the pride
Of man's superior breed;

"But chief myself I will enjoin,
Awake at duty's call,

To show a love as prompt as thine
To Him who gives me all."

TO A WATER-FOWL.

William Cullen Bryant.

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-
The desert and illimitable air

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

THE LAST LEAF.1

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

I SAW him once before,

As he passed by the door,

And again

The pavement stones resound,

As he totters o'er the ground

With his cane.

1 This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our streets of a venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He was a fine monumental specimen in his cocked hat and knee breeches, with his buckled shoes and his sturdy cane. The smile with which I, as a young man, greeted him, meant no disrespect to an honored fellow-citizen whose costume was out of date, but whose patriotism never changed with years.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,

Not a better man was found

By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets

Sad and wan,

And he shakes his feeble head,

That it seems as if he said, "They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has presst

In their bloom,

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said

Poor old lady, she is dead

Long ago

That he had a Roman nose,

And his cheek was like a rose

In the snow.

But now his nose is thin,

And it rests upon his chin

Like a staff,

And a crook is in his back,

And a melancholy crack

In his laugh.

I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin

At him here;

But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be

The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,

Let them smile, as I do now,

At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

"AS AN OAK WHOSE LEAF FADETH."

Edward Fitzgerald.

As are the leaves on the trees, even so are man's generations;
This is the truest verse ever a poet has sung:

Nevertheless few hearing it hear; Hope, flattering alway,
Lives in the bosom of all

reigns in the blood of the young.

WHEN Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he called for his son-inlaw, and while the Tweed murmured through the woods, and a September sun lit up the bowers, whose growth he had watched so eagerly, said to him, "Be a good man; only that can comfort you when you come to lie here!" "Be a good man!” To that threadbare Truism shrunk all that gorgeous tapestry of written and real Romance.