HY walks are ever pleasant; every scene

Is rich in beauty, lively, or serene

Rich is that varied view with woods around,
Seen from the seat, within the shrubb'ry bound;
Where shines the distant lake, and where appear,

From ruins bolting, unmolested deer;

Lively-the village-green, the inn, the place,

Where the good widow schools her infant race.

Shops, whence are heard the hammer and the saw,

And village-pleasures unreproved by law.

Then how serene, when in your favourite room,
Gales from your jasmines soothe the evening gloom;

And when from upland paddock you look down,
And just perceive the smoke which hides the town;
When weary peasants at the close of day
Walk to their cots, and part upon the way;

When cattle slowly cross the shallow brook,

And shepherds pen their folds, and rest upon their crook.

CRABBE.

APRIL.

HAVE found violets. April hath come on,
And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain
Falls in the beaded drops of Summer time.
You may hear birds at morning, and at eve
The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,

Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in
His beautiful bright neck, and from the hills
A murmur, like the hoarseness of the sea,
Tells the release of waters, and the earth
Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves
Are lifted by the grass-and so I know
That Nature, from her delicate ear, hath heard
The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.

Smell at my Violets-I found them where
The liquid south stole o'er them, on a bank
That lean'd to running water. There's to me
A daintiness about these early flowers
That touches one like poetry. They blow

With such a simple loveliness among

The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out

Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts
Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.

I love to go in the capricious days

Of April and hunt Violets; when the rain.
Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod
So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.
It may be deemed unmanly, but the wise
Read Nature like the manuscript of Heaven,
And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!
Ye spirits of habitual unrest,

And read it when the fever of the world
Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life
Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be
Like a beguiling music to its flow,

And you will no more wonder that I love
To hunt for Violets in the April time.

ON THE STUDY OF NATURE.

NATURE! all thy seasons please the eye
Of him who sees a Deity in all.

It is His presence that diffuses charms
Unspeakable, o'er mountain, wood, and stream.
To think, that He, who rolls yon solar sphere,
Uplifts the warbling songster to the sky;
To mark His presence in the mighty bow
That spans the clouds, as in the tints minute
Of tiniest flower; to hear His awful voice
In thunder speak, and whisper in the gale :

To know and feel His care for all that lives ;-
"Tis this that makes the barren waste appear
A fruitful field, each grove a paradise.
Yes! place me 'mid far-stretching woodless wilds,
Where no sweet song is heard; the heath-bell there
Would soothe my weary sight, and tell of Thee!
There would my gratefully uplifted eye
Survey the heavenly vault, by day,-by night,
When glows the firmament from pole to pole ;
There would my overflowing heart exclaim,
"The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,
The firmament shows forth His handy work!"

GRAHAME.

ALL NATURE BEAUTIFUL.

N

ATURE in every form is lovely still.
I can admire to ecstasy, although

I be not bower'd in a rustling grove,

Tracing through flowery tufts some twinkling rill,
Or perch'd upon a green and sunny hill,

Gazing upon the sylvanry below,

And harkening to the warbling beaks above.
To me the wilderness of thorns and brambles,
Beneath whose weeds the muddy runnel scrambles,-
The bald, burnt moor-the marsh's sedgy shallows,
Where docks, bullrushes, waterflags, and mallows
Choke the rank waste, alike can yield delight.
A blade of silver hair-grass nodding slowly
In the soft wind;-the thistle's purple crown,
The ferns, the rushes tall, and mosses lowly,
A thorn, a weed, an insect, or a stone,
Can thrill me with sensations exquisite-
For all are exquisite, and every part

Points to the Mighty Hand that fashion'd it.
Then as I look aloft with yearning heart,

The trees and mountains, like conductors, raise

My spirit upward on its flight sublime,

And clouds, and suns, and heaven's marmorean floor,

Are but the stepping stones by which I climb

Up to the dread Invisible, to pour

My grateful feelings out in silent praise.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE,