'WHERE is thy home?' I asked a child,
Who, in the morning air,

Was twining flowers, most sweet and wild,
In garlands for her hair.
My home,' the happy child replied,
And smiled in childish glee,
Is on the sunny mountain side,
Where soft winds wander free.'
Oh! blessings fall on artless youth,
And all its rosy hours,

When every word is joy and truth,
And treasures live in flowers.

'Where is thy home?' I asked of one
Who bent with flushing face,
To hear a warrior's tender lore
In the wild woods' secret place.
She spoke not, but her varying cheek
The tale might well impart,

The home of that young spirit meek
Was in a kindred heart.

Ah! souls that well might soar above,
To earth will fondly cling,

And build their hopes on human love,
That light and fragile thing.

'Where is thy home, thou lonely man?'
I asked a pilgrim grey,

Who came with furrowed brow, and
Slow, musing on his way;

He paused, and with a solemn mien,
Upturned his holy eyes,

wan,

The land I seek thou ne'er hast seen,
My home is in the skies.'

Oh, blest, thrice blest! the heart must be,
To whom such thoughts are given,
That walks from worldly fetters free,
Its only home in Heaven.

FORESTS.

Juon.

THAN a tree, a grander child earth bears not!
What are the boasted palaces of man,
Imperial city, or triumphal arch,

To forests of immeasurable extent,

Which time confirms, which centuries waste not?

Oaks gather strength for ages, and when at last

They wane so beauteous in decrepitude!
So grand in weakness! e'en in their decay
So venerable! 'twere sacrilege to escape
The consecrating touch of time!

SONG OF THE WINTER TREE.

Eliza Cook.

WHAT a happy life was mine, when the sunbeams used to shine,

Like golden threads about my summer suit! When my warp and woof of green let enough of light between,

Just to dry the dew that lingered at my

root.

What troops of friends I had, when my form was richly clad,

When I was fair 'mid fairest things of earth; Good company came round, and I heard no rougher sound

Than childhood's laugh in bold and leaping mirth.

The old man sat him down to note my emerald

crown,

And rest beneath my branches thick and bright;

The squirrel on the spray kept swinging all the day,

And the song birds chattered to me through the night.

The dreaming poet laid his soft harp in my shade

And sung my beauty, chorused by the bee:

The village maiden came, to read her own dear

name

Carved on my bark, and bless the broad green tree.

The merry music breathed while the bounding dancers wreathed

In mazy windings round my giant stem; And the joyous words they poured, as they trod the chequered sward,

Told the green tree was a worshipped thing by them.

Oh, what troops of friends I had, to make my strong heart glad;

What kind ones answered to my rustling call!

I was hailed with smiling praise in the glowing summer days,

And the beautiful green tree was loved by all.

But the bleak wind has swept by, and the grey cloud dimmed the sky,

My latest leaf has left my inmost bough;

I creak in grating tones, like the skeleton's bleached bones,

And not a footstep seeks the old tree now.

I stand at morning's dawn, the cheerless and forlorn;

The sunset comes and finds me still alone;

The mates who shared my bloom have left me me in my gloom,

Birds, poet, dancers, children

all, are gone.

The hearts that turned this way when I stood in fine array,

Forsake me now as though I ceased to be:
I win no painter's gaze, I hear no minstrel's

lays,

The very nest falls from the leafless tree.

But the kind and merry train will be sure to come again,

With love and smiles as ready as of yore;

I must only wait to wear my robe so rich and

fair,

And they will throng as they have thronged before.

Oh! ye who dwell in pride, with parasites beside,

Only lose your summer green leaves, and ye'll

see

That the courtly friends will change into things all cold and strange

And forget ye as they do the winter tree.