The young bird is out on his delicate pinionHe timidly sails in the infinite sky;

A greeting to May, and her fairy dominion,

He pours, on the west wind's fragrant sigh: Around, above, there are peace and pleasure, The woodlands are singing, the heaven is bright;

The fields are unfolding their emerald treasure, And man's genial spirit is soaring in light.

Alas! for my weary and care-haunted bosom! The spells of the spring-time arouse it no

more;

The song in the wild wood, the sheen of the blossom,

The fresh-welling fountain, their magic is o'er !

When I list to the streams, when I look on the flowers,

They tell of the Past with so mournful a tone, That I call up the throngs of my long-vanished hours,

And sigh that their transports are over and

gone.

From the wide-spreading earth, from the limitless heaven,

There have vanished an eloquent glory and gleam;

To my veiled mind no more is the influence

given,

Which coloreth life with the hues of a dream :

The bloom purpled landscape its loveliness keepeth

I deem that a light as of old gilds the wave; But the eye of my spirit in heaviness sleepeth, Or sees but my youth, and the visions it gave.

Yet it is not that age on my years hath descended,

'Tis not that its snow-wreaths encircle my brow;

But the newness and sweetness of Being are ended,

I feel not their love-kindling witchery now: The shadows of death o'er my path have been sweeping;

There are those who have loved me debarred from the day;

The green turf is bright where in peace they are sleeping,

And on wings of remembrance my soul is

away.

It is shut to the glow of this present existence,
It hears, from the Past, a funeral strain;
And it eagerly turns to the high-seeming dis-
tance,

Where the last blooms of earth will be garnered again;

Where no mildew the soft damask-rose cheek shall nourish,

Where Grief bears no longer the poisonous sting;

Where pitiless Death no dark sceptre can flourish,

Or stain with his blight the luxuriant spring.

It is thus that the hopes which to others are given,

Fall cold on my heart in this rich month of

May;

I hear the clear anthems that ring through the heaven,

I drink the bland airs that enliven the day; And if gentle Nature, her festival keeping,

Delights not my bosom, ah! do not condemn; O'er the lost and the lovely my spirit is weeping, For my heart's fondest raptures are buried with them.

PLACE OF REST.

"Alli los impios cesaron del tumulto; y alli reposaron los de fuerzas cansadas."

WEEP not, thou heavenward pilgrim here, around whose toilsome way

The gloom of many a care is thrown, where'er thy feet may stray;

Within whose heart some tender pulse must echo unto pain,

When tried by this relentless world, where every dream is vain ;

Weep not, though o'er the living glow of Pleasure's brightest wreath,

Fate's swift and frequent tempests leave the cloudy stain of death:

For endless raptures shall be thine, in mansions of the blest,

Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

Thou must bend unto the chastener here, and see the deeply loved,

The pure and beautiful of earth, by early death removed;

Thou must mark on many a blighted cheek, the hectic mildew cling,

Thou must bend beneath Time's shadowy frown, when snows are on his wing, Till the peace which passeth knowledge is garnered in thy soul,

Till the silver cord is broken, and crushed the golden bowl;

Till the bright and glorious streets of heaven are by thy feet imprest,

Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are rest.

How many flowers will rise and bloom, a flood of sweets to pour

Across the mazes of thy way, that earth can not restore!

How many fond eyes, full of love, will in the grave be hid

How will the dark and heavy pall press on each folded lid!

Thou must pile the grave's remorseless clod on many a pallid brow,

And lift the serenade of death beneath the cypress bough:

Till with a pale and deluged cheek, and with a yearning breast,

Thou wilt long for pinions of a dove, to soar and be at rest.

Yet it is but for a season- and thy trials all are past,

And then! upon the empyreal air thy spiritwings are cast;