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INSECTS.

What atom forms of insect life appear!
And who can follow Nature's pencil here?
Their wings with azure, green, and purple gloss'd,
Studded with colour'd eyes, with gems emboss'd,
Inlaid with pearl, and mark'd with various stains
Of lively crimson, through their dusky veins.
Some shoot like living stars athwart the night,
And scatter from their wings a vivid light,
To guide the Indian to his tawny loves,

As through the woods with cautious step he moves.
See the proud giant of the beetle race,

What shining arms his polish'd limbs enchase!
Like some stern warrior, formidably bright,
His steely sides reflect a gleaming light;
On his large forehead spreading horns he wears,
And high in air the branching antlers bears;
O'er many an inch extends his wide domain,
And his rich treasury swells with hoarded grain.
BARBAULD.

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THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

THERE is a reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he ; "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kiss'd their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

"My lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where He was once a child.

They shall all bloom in fields of light,

Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

THE SABBATH.

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;

'Twas an angel visited the green earth,

And took the flowers away.

LONGFELLOW.

THE SABBATH.

IF earth hath aught that speaks to us of Heaven,
'Tis when, within some lone and leafy dell,
Solemn and slow, we list the Sabbath bell

On music's wings through the clear ether driven :—
Doth it not say aloud,-" Oh man, 'twere well
Hither to come, nor walk in sins unshriven !

Haste to this temple, tidings ye shall hear,

Ye who are sorrowful, and sick in soul,

Your griefs to soothe, your downcastness to cheer, To bind affliction's wounds, and make you whole; Come here come here-though like the Tyrian dye Guilt hath polluted you, yet, white as snow, From the eternal streams that hither flow, Hence ye shall pass to meet your Maker's eye."

MOIR

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THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

THE stately homes of England,

How beautiful they stand!

Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across their green sward bound

Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,

What gladsome looks of household love

Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,

Or childhood's tale is told;

Or lips move tunefully along

Some glorious page of old.

The cottage homes of England!

By thousands on her plains

They are smiling o'er the silv'ry brook,

And round the hamlet-fanes;

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,

Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,

As the bird beneath their eaves.

THE WAR-HORSE.

The free fair homes of England!
Long, long in hut and hall

May hearts of native proof be rear'd
To guard each hallow'd wall.

And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flow'ry sod,

Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God.

HEMANS.

THE WAR-HORSE.

THE fiery courser, when he hears from far
The sprightly trumpets and the shouts of war,
Pricks up his ears, and trembling with delight,
Shifts place, and paws, and hopes the promised fight
On his right shoulder his thick mane reclined,
Ruffles at speed, and dances in the wind.
Eager he stands,-then, starting with a bound,
He turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground;
Fire from his eyes, clouds from his nostrils flow,
He bears his rider headlong on the foe.

DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.

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