Thou may'st be met on each open moor,

'Mong gorse and ling,

Thou common thing!

Thy paltry blossoms the children poor,
And gypsies, bring,

Bound up in bundles to sweep the street;
And art thou for our high presence meet?

We have been bred up with tenderest care;
We know not the breath of the common air;
Our delicate stems, and modelled forms,

Are shielded from winds, and frosts, and storms;
For we are the beautiful, great, and rare;
But what are ye?

How can ye see

Our stately pride, yet boldly dare,

Presumptuously,

To raise your heads of humble name

With us, who have titles, and rank, and fame?

WILD HEATHER.

Buds of the mountain and moor are we,
The dear and the gleesome, the fearless and free!
Our strong stems shrink not from storm nor rain,
We shake off the tears, and laugh out again.
When Zephyrus drives the red clouds i' the morn,

The lark upsprings

On her dewy wings,

From our sheltering sprays to the sky upborne, And, soaring, sings

Her love for the wild and purple Heather,

Where her callow nestlings lie safe together.

Glorious, and glad, and dear are we,
Ringing our bells o'er the heath in glee.
Glorious and glad-and oh! most dear
Is the Heather-bloom to the mountaineer;
And dear to his children, who, laughing, come
And carry bright wreaths to their cottage home.
As the blessed things roam, 'neath their fairy feet
We rustling dance

And our heads advance,

Their innocent hands to gift and greet;

For childhood's glance,

When playmates laugh merrily out together,
Like sunlight shines on the bells of Heather.

In our freedom we scorn such slaves as ye,
Your empty pride, and your vanity:-
Ye are fine, 'tis true-and neat and trim,
But are ye not shut in a prison dim?
Ye are captive slaves, though ye boast and sneer,
And think we should bow to your grandeur here.

Ours be the grandeur, and ours the glee,

For we o'er the hills and the heaths wave free.
We bend not our purple and fearless crests

To meaner things, though in gaudier vests.
Freely above us the wind may blow,

Merrily round us the streamlet flow;

And the promise-toned hum of the busy bee,
The glad day long,

Seems a harvest song

Of joy, for the sweets that from flower and tree,
Around us flung,

And the honeyed bells of the purple Heather,
She hath gathered in store for the wintery weather.

Ye are sheltered, ye say, from the blights of even;
Oh! are ye not hid from the sunlit heaven?
Ye are cultured, and cherished, and tended.-True,
But are ye not exiles and captives too?
Are ye not victims of pride and art?
From Nature's paths do ye not depart ?

For eve's gentle dew, and morn's bright beam,

Have ye not fires, and stoves, and steam?

And while we quaff gaily our Summer rain,

A few stagnant drops your lives sustain:

And while we are kissed and rocked by the breeze,

Ye stand erect in your palaces;

Each ranged in his special rank and place

Holding proudly on high his titled face.

Yet ye are the beings would smile in scorn

At our claims-at " things on the wild heath born;"
That would shrink from our presence as all unmeet,
Because we are useful, and keep ye neat.

Your dwellings, ye idlers, would soon look dim,
If ye had not our kindred to keep them trim.
Ye find even besoms of use, no doubt;
Then let arrogance cease such things to flout.
We may ask, perchance, of what use are ye?
When such o'erstrained pride we feel and see.
The lark dwells not in your slight weak sprays,
Not glassing your blossoms the streamlet plays,
The happy and hard-working bee ne'er comes
Within your well guarded and glittering domes-
Ye suffer not even the breeze to bring

A breath of your sweets on his downy wing-
Ye do not-perchance ye too well feel

Ye have nought he would condescend to steal-
No-vain ones—we pity, but envy not

Your rank and state,

Ye little great;

Ours is a prouder and happier lot

A nobler fate;

For we live in gladness and love together,

We fearless flowers of the mountain Heather!

THE FLOWER AND THE FAIRY.

I do wander every where,

Swifter than the moone's sphere,

And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.

SHAKSPEARE.

And that same dew, which sometimes on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flow'ret's eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

IBID.

A FAIRY, whose task was to dwell upon earth,
Watching the birth

And height'ning the beauty of Summer flowers,

As the little buds oped to the dews and showers,

Aweary grew

Of each tint and hue

That so long she had gazed on through days and hours. And the Fairy threw

Around o'er the garden a wistful gaze,

That rested on bower, and bank, and maze;
And the Fairy sighed,

And the flowers replied,

In echoes of fragrance, that fanned along
Like a butterfly's wing or an elfin song.
As the soft breath died

Into stillness and calm o'er the garden wide,