In woody dells, by shallow brooks that stand,
  The modest violet, and primrose pale,
  (Like youth just bursting into life,) expand,
  And cast their perfumes down the dewy vale,
  Till laden seems each bland, yet searching gale
  That fans the cheek with odours of the Spring. 
  All living nature rushes to inhale: 
  As if this universal blossoming
  Too soon would fade away, or instantly take wing.

  What beauty in the swelling upland green,
  On which the fleecy flock in sportive play,
  And mirth, and gambol innocent, are seen. 
  What pleasure through the scented copse to stray,
  And hear the stock dove coo its am’rous lay,
  Or climb the steep hill’s side, beneath whose height
  Dashing afar, like drifted snow, their spray;
  The waves of ocean with an angry might,
  Flash in the purple dawn, majestically bright.

  Yet ’midst this union of benignant tones,
  How fares it with the reasonable part
  Of God’s created glories?  Man disowns
  Not to give thanks; but skilled by human art
  To screen the passions of a grateful heart;
  He walks encircled by philosophy, whose creed
  Allows no outward semblance, to impart
  One trace of joyousness that may exceed
  Those coldly rigid rules on which it loves to feed.

  And therefore balmy spring, with all its joys,
  Its pomp of early leaves, and thrilling lays,
  And ceaseless chime of song (that never cloys,
  Altho’ the winds be redolent of praise.)
  Wakes not in man that stupor of amaze,
  Bird, beast, and plant, in universal choir,
  Pay to Almighty in a thousand ways,
  That sterner reason’s votaries would flout,
  Giving their tardy homage in mistrust and doubt.

  Not so with me.  I never feel the spring
  Come on in beauty, but my swelling soul
  Seems ready in its gush of joy, to fling
  All trammels off, that would in aught control
  Its wild pulsation.  O’er it feelings roll
  Too mighty for expression; and each sense
  Appears to be commingled in one whole;
  Whose sum of ecstacy is so intense,
  It finds no home to garner it, but in omnipotence.

J.H.H.

* * * * *

POLISH PATRIOT’S APPEAL.

(For the Mirror.)

  Rise fellow men! our country yet remains
  By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
  And swear with her to live—­for her to die.

  Campbell.

  Have we not proved our country’s worth—­the country of the free? 
  Have we not raised the tyrant’s foot—­and struck for liberty—­
  The giant foot that on us fell, in war’s tremendous fall—­
  The mighty weight that bore us down and held our arms in thrall?

  Have we not risked our homes, our all, at Freedom’s glorious shrine,
  And dared the vengeance of the Russ, whose sway is yclept divine? 
  And have we not appealed to arms—­our last and dearest right! 
  And is not ours a sacred cause, a just and holy fight?