THE RURAL LIFE.

E who would serve the rural life,

Forswear

Contentions wearisome-life's wear and tear, Town-bred ambitions-thoughts of gain or loss Of worldly dross;

All wild unreasonable hopes of thine,

Straightway resign;

Satisfied in these meadows to possess,
Like innocent little children, happiness;

All debts of hope deferred, or wealth's increase,
Glad to compound and liquidate for-PEACE!

Ye who would serve the rural life,

Forbear

To trust implicitly in man-made laws,
Nor urge the justice of the justest cause
Too far.

Thou, rather, loving-kindness ever strive
To keep alive.

The Rural Life.

Annoyances and trespasses will be,

31

Which 'twere as well thou didst not choose to see;

By gentle bearing prove thy gentle blood—
Shine thou, the mirror of good neighbourhood.

Ye who would serve the rural life,
Take care,

Whate'er thy duty, be that duty done,
Nor shun it, if thyself thou wouldst not shun.
Easy-Not thee!

At ease, and slothful-indolent and free,
God will not let man be!

Up, and be doing, then-the wilderness
Invites thy hand to conquer and to bless;
Deserts are but the earth at liberty-
'Twas Chaos when the universe was free!

Ye who would serve the rural life,
Declare

Th' eternal truth of nature, and be free
Of old simplicity. With reverence store
Unwritten lore.

Lo! the First Cause, benevolent and great,
In all we contemplate.

Nor let seclusion dull the social mind,

For friends estranged are kin to friends unkind;
Be sedulous of hospitable cares,

Angels have thus been cherished unawares !

Ye who would serve the rural life,

Despair

of finding heaven on earth-days void of care,
Exemption from the miseries of life,

And unsought strife.

Thy heaven on earth is but a heaven of clay,
Passing away.

Tenant at will of evanescent hours,

Joys unsubstantial, transitory powers;

Steward of these lands, and of this life of thine,
Commanded to improve, and to resign!

From Chambers' Journal.

JOHN FISHER MURRAY.

MAN COMPARED TO LEAVES ON TREES.

LIKE leaves on trees, the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground,
Another race the following Spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise,

So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these, when those are pass'd away.

РОРЕ.

The Evergreen.

MEMORIES OF THE PAST.

IN the lonely hour of twilight,
When all beside is still,

How oft come old sad memories,
Around my window sill!
I watch the gathering shadows
That draw around the earth,
And I think of the veil of sadness
That shadowed all our mirth.

I see familiar faces,

That I often saw of yore;
And I hear the hum of voices
That I shall hear no more.

I think of playmates wandering
All o'er the wild cold world,
And I think of them as often
In life's deep vortex whirled.

And dearer ties are severed,

And nearer friends have flown;
Some with life's storms to battle,
Some to the grave have gone.
I miss their gentle teachings-
Their words and deeds of love;
But my spirit ever whispers

The loved ones dwell above.

M. A. DEVEL.

33

THE CYPRESS TREE.

SLENDER tree upon a height in lonely beauty

towers,

So dark, as if it only drank the rushing thunder showers;

When birds were at their evening hymns, in thoughtful

reverie,

I've marked the shadows deep and long, from yonder cypress tree.

I've thought of oriental tombs, of silent cities, where
In many a row the cypress stands, in token of despair!
And thought, beneath the evening star, how many a
maiden crept

From life's discordant scene, and o'er the tomb in silence wept.

I've thought, thou lonely cypress tree, thou hermit of the grove,

How many a heart, alas! is doomed forlorn on earth to

rove;