TO MILLY.

LIKE summer, soft and breezy, When swallows skim the sea,

Comes my song in numbers easy And refreshing unto me.

So I'll pipe a lay to Milly,

The merry-making thing—

My pretty cottage lily,

And picture of the Spring.

Oh, a beauty bright and brisky,

And musical as May,

Is my lassie, fair and frisky,
My little dancing fay.

In Nature's own adorning

This cherub thing appears,

And welcome as the morning

Is this pledge of loving years.

Like a starry glory dancing

In the cloudless ebon sky, Is the wild romantic glancing

Of her laughter-lighted eye.

Or like the silver gleaming
On an Ethiopic queen,

Is the life so brightly beaming
From her crystal orb, I ween.

There's a rich and pearly beauty On that joy-illumined brow,

And, as love's delightful duty,

I'll paint that beauty now.

Her cheeks are twin-blown roses,

Fresh pencilled by the sun,

Which Time each morn exposes,

But hides as eve comes on.

Her lips are two sweet cherries,

The luscious fruit of love,

And rich as holly-berries,

When winter paints the grove.

Would you see this pretty creature In her wild and merry joy,

With a smile on every feature?

You must see her with my boy.

You must hear her accents choral,

Like the tones of silver rills,

As they gush from hedge-rows floral, To tinkle down the hills.

You have seen the lamb revealing
All its happy life could show,
While, with true maternal feeling,
Its dam would gambol too.

Not half so sweet and winning
Is that pretty scene to me,
As my little one's beginning
Her romp upon my knee.

Farewell to woodlands mossy,
And violets of the glade,

To daisies white and glossy,

And warblers of the shade.

ON SEEING CHARLIE AT PLAY.

ERE thy locks of golden light Change to winter's snowy white, And old Care has passed his plough

O'er the sunshine of thy brow;

Ere a troop of sorrows march

O'er thy pretty eyebrows' arch,
And each brow reversed wears
Footprints of the woes of years;
Whilst thine eyes, like sable sloes,
Each with lustrous beauty glows,

Whilst they sparkle forth their glee,
At the shout of revelry;

Ere those orbs that, wondering, stand Looking out on fairy land,

To cavernous shades retire,

Sullen with their wasted fire,
Shrinking from each ray of hope,
Like a peevish misanthrope;
Ere the rose has fled thy cheek,

Whilst thy coral lips are sleek,