TO-MORROW.

ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD. (WRITTEN IN HER EIGHTIETH YEAR.)

SEE where the falling day

In silence steals away,

Behind the western hills withdrawn ;

Her fires are quench'd, her beauty fled,
With blushes all her face o'erspread,

As conscious she had ill fulfill'd

The promise of the dawn.

Another morning soon shall rise,
Another day salute our eyes

As smiling and as fair as she,
And make as many promises;
But do not thou
The tale believe,
They're sisters all,

And all deceive.

OH, BEAUTIFUL STAR!

ANGEL VISITS AND OTHER POEMS," BY
JAMES RIDDALL WOOD, 1840.

OH beautiful star, with thine aspect of light,

Adorning eternity's mantle of blue,

Were thy silvery features more lovely and bright When they smiled on the scene while the world was yet new?

Oh! I who address thee am but of a day,

And to-morrow thy fadeless and radiant eye

Shall witness me wither and vanish away,

And smile on my grave from thy throne in the sky.

But though fix'd to one time, like a point in vast space,
My soul is unpinion'd, and frequent doth cast

A glance o'er the gloom of the future, or trace
The varied events that have peopled the past.

Thou hast seen,-thou hast seen, in thy deathless career,
Far more than the records of ages have told;

Thou shalt see, from thy distant and shadowy sphere,
What few but thyself and thy Maker behold.

Oh, tell me, wert thou of that glorious throng

That witness'd creation's bright beauties unfurl'd? That thrill'd to the music, and joined in the song,

When the morning stars welcomed the birth of the

world?

Then man was instinct with celestial fire,

And Nature was graced with perennial bloom;
Now these are exchanged for the thorn and the briar,
The bed of affliction, the mourner, the tomb.

Didst thou see the wild flood in its horrible sweep
Roll proudly, and usher the world to its grave?
Didst thou, when the ark was alone on the deep,
First whisper of hope o'er the desolate wave?

When the armies of midnight were marshall'd on high, And earth with her children to slumber was given, Didst thou witness the Bethlehem shepherds draw nigh, And list the melodious pæans of heaven?

And haply thy mild and ethereal ray

In the east where it rose was arrested till morn, Inviting the Chaldean Magi away

To the lowly retreat where the Saviour was born,

Again wert thou call'd to look earthward, and lo!

There were darkness, and earthquakes, and thunderings

dire;

The sun had withdrawn from the vision of woe,

And man,-only man, saw the Saviour expire.
I too must behold him when time shall be done,
The angels his train, and the lightnings his car;

The earth shall be burn'd, and extinguish'd the sun; And thou too shalt perish, "Oh, beautiful star!"

JEANIE MORRISON.

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL, BORN IN GLASGOW, 1797,
BURIED IN THE CEMETERY OF THAT CITY IN 1835.

I'VE wander'd east, I've wander'd west,

Through mony a weary way;

But never, never can forget

The luve o' life's young day!

The fire that's blawn on Beltane e'en,
May weel be black gin Yule;
But blacker fa' awaits the heart
When first fond luve grows cule.

O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,

The thochts o' bygane years

Still fling their shadows owre my path,
And blind my een wi' tears!
They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears,
And sair and sick I pine,

As memory idly summons up.

The blythe blinks o' langsyne.

'Twas then we luv't ilk ither weel,

'Twas then we twa did part;

Sweet time !-sad time !-twa bairns at schule,

Twa bairns, and but ae heart!

'Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink,

To lear ilk ither lear;

And tones, and looks, and smiles were shed, Remember'd evermair.

I wonder, Jeanie, aften yet,

When sitting on that bink,

Cheek touchin' cheek, loof lock'd in loof,
What our wee heads could think.
When baith bent doun owre ae braid page,
Wi' ae buik on our knee,

Thy lips were on thy lesson, but

My lesson was in thee.

Oh, mind ye how we hung our heads,
How cheeks brent red wi' shame,
Whene'er the schule-weans, laughin', said,

We cleek'd thegither hame?

And mind ye o' the Saturdays

(The schule then skail't at noon), When we ran aff to speel the braesThe broomy braes o' June?

My head rins round and round about,
My heart flows like a sea,

As ane by ane the thochts rush back
O' schule-time and o' thee.

Oh, mornin' life! oh, mornin' luve !
Oh, lichtsome days and lang,