And the sun's faithful love you perceive;

At noon's merry time

They are just in their prime,

But by night shall these sweets take their leave! Then buy my Spring flowers, fresh flowers wash'd in

dew,

Make your choice whilst they're brightest and

halest;

Youths and maidens, remember, they're emblems of

you,

Your first bloom of life is the frailest!

I have brought them from garden, and forest, and down,

From the glen, and the green mountain's head; Here are buds to entwine in the bride's wedding-crown, And flowrets to strew o'er the dead:

Here are cypress and yew,

The willow and rue,

For the maiden whose lover hath fled;

But affection long known

Is by lavender shown,

Smelling sweet when it's blossoms are shed!

Then buy my Spring flowers, fresh flowers wash'd in

dew,

And clusters of hare-bells and heather,

Youths and maidens who love, they are emblems of

you,

"Twined to bloom and be blighted together!

RECOLLECTIONS OF OXFORD.

OXFORD! among thy classic bow'rs I stray'd,
'Neath cloisters cool and high o'er-arching shade
Of graceful elms that crown thy stately walks,
Where learning meditates or calmly talks,
Unmindful of the world's distracting noise-
Where, free from care, the mind no counterpoise
To reckless passion needs, but life glides smooth
As time's unruffled wing. Oh! it did soothe
My anxious spirit to behold thy towers
Time-hallow'd (over which oblivion lowers
With shadowy shroud, veiling their distant date
In antique legends) and to contemplate
Those cells where one might hold book-converse sweet
Within some green quadrangle's hush'd retreat;
Or, thoughtful, through thy turf-spread gardens roam,
Thy meads my country, and thy walls my home!--

Ah! here, thought I, the wounded bosom needs
No medicine beyond what quiet breeds
From studious thoughts or lonely reveries,

Where fancy as within a mirror, sees

The lofty spirits of the good and wise,
The labours of whose lives at length we prize,
In meditating on those valued tomes

Rang'd in dim glory beneath splendid domes—
Vast pyramids of learning!―mental catacombs!

In those Elysian realms of human lore,
Where science dreams, and learning loves to pore
Upon th' unconscious page with power fraught
To wake the curious, lull the painful thought,
Once did I roam, and sigh'd to think how blest
The tranquil dozers in that place of rest;
Envying their drowsy life, to which the hum
Of busy circumstance doth faintly come
Laden with hushing slumber, as in nooks,
Unvisited by care and stor'd with books,

They watch'd the lazy sentinels of time;

The dial's face a friend's, and the clock's chime, Their counsellor o' th' hour!

66

"So could I live,"

Methought, a labourer in learning's hive,

Passing my days as tranquilly as those

Who bid the world leave us to our repose.'

So might I learn the wisdom of content
In studious labour, and pursue the bent
Of my mind's longings, wedded to my books,
And gleaning smiles from their unalter'd looks;

Find friends in the Philosophies, and learn
Truth from the Sciences, dwelling in turn
On sounds of patriots' voice or poets' lyre,
Nor to pursuits ambitious e'er aspire."

Sweet were those dreams, and happy now I feel,
When from realities an hour I steal
To live that brief day over once again
In retrospective fancy; while in vain
I seek an outlet from the giddy maze

Of what is call'd "life's bus'ness," but to gaze
With hopeless longing on those meadows green,
Where sheep-bells, shepherds' chimes, make still the

scene,

And to the mind sound music blissfully serene.

GASTON.

SONNET

BY COMMANDER HUTCHINSON, R. N.

ALAS the cruel robberies of years,

That steal our pleasures one by one away; That even in youth sow seeds for our decay, And do but roll to multiply our cares.

The bloom of beauty, and the strength of youth,
The joys of love, and sweet society,
Alas, they rob us of with little ruth,

And fill each sense with sad satiety.

But oh, heart-breaking loss of all! the mind, The god-like mind too feels their tyrant sway; Or worse, itself immortal, is confined

Within a body turning fast to clay,

Whose crazy faculties but slow, and ill,
Obey the mandates of its baffled will.