And his golden ringlets fly

O'er vale and mountain high;
Over steepy rock and hill,

Loud cascade and gentle rill,

Leafy wood and shining lake,

Flowery mead and flowery brake ;

Over silent wilderness,

Where modest love retires to feel his bliss.

In the woodlands love is singing,

Health salutes the rosy Day;

Hill and dale with joy are ringing,
Rise, my love, and come away!

THE DYING MOTHER.

(FROM THE COURSE OF TIME.)

"FRESH in our memory,

as fresh

As yesterday, is yet the day she died.

It was an April day; and blithely all

The youth of nature leaped beneath the sun,
And promised glorious manhood; and our hearts

Were glad, and round them danced the lightsome blood,
In healthy merriment-when tidings came,

A child was born; and tidings came again,

That she who gave it birth was sick to death.
So swift trod sorrow on the heels of joy!
We gathered round her bed, and bent our knees
In fervent supplication to the Throne

Of Mercy; and perfumed our prayers with sighs
Sincere, and penitential tears, and looks
Of self-abasement; but we sought to stay
An angel on the earth; a spirit ripe

For heaven; and Mercy, in her love, refused:
Most merciful, as oft, when seeming least!
Most gracious when she seemed the most to frown!
The room I well remember; and the bed
On which she lay; and all the faces too,
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there, and mother bending stood,
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness; her husband, too, was there,
And brothers; and they wept-her sisters, too,
Did weep and sorrow comfortless; and I,
Too, wept, tho' not to weeping given; and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.

This I remember well; but better still,

I do remember and will ne'er forget
The dying eye-that eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew, as nearer death approached:
As I have seen the gentle little flower

Look fairest in the silver beam, which fell

Reflected from the thunder cloud that soon.

Came down, and o'er the desert scattered far

And wide its loveliness. She made a sign

To bring her babe-'twas brought, and by her placed.
She looked upon its face, that neither smiled
Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon 't, and laid
Her hand upon its little breast, and sought
For it, with look that seemed to penetrate
The heavens-unutterable blessings-such
As God to dying parents only granted,

For infants left behind them in the world.
"God keep my child," we heard her say, and heard
No more the Angel of the Covenant

Was come, and faithful to his promise stood
Prepared to walk with her thro' death's dark vale.
And now her eyes grew bright, and brighter still,
Too bright for ours to look upon, suffused
With many tears, and closed without a cloud.
They set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven."

SIMPLICITY.

ONE man there was, and many such you might
Have met, who never had a dozen thoughts
In all his life, and never changed their course;
But told them o'er, each in its customed place,
From morn till night, from youth to hoary age.
Little above the ox that grazed the field,

The word philosophy he never heard
Or science; never heard of liberty,
Necessity, or laws of gravitation;

*

And never had an unbelieving doubt.
Beyond his native vale he never looked;

But thought the visual line, that girt him round,
The world's extreme; and thought the silver Moon,
That nightly o'er him led her virgin host,

No broader than his father's shield. He lived,-
Lived where his father lived, died where he died,
Lived happy, and died happy, and was saved.
Be not surprised. He loved and served his God.

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL.

1797-1835.

MOTHERWELL was born in Glasgow, but, after his eleventh year, was brought up under the care of an uncle in Paisley. At the age of twenty-one he was appointed deputy to the sheriff-clerk of that town. He early evinced a love of poetry, and in 1819 became editor of a miscellany entitled the "Harp of Renfrewshire." A taste for antiquarian research divided with the muse the empire of Motherwell's genius, and he attained an unusually familiar acquaintance with the early history of our native literature, particularly in the department of traditional poetry. The result of this erudition appeared in Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern (1827), a collection of Scottish ballads, prefaced by a historical introduction. The following year he became editor of a weekly journal in Paisley. The talent and spirit which he evinced in his editorial duties were the means of advancing him to the more important office of conducting the Glasgow Courier, in which situation he continued till his death. The taste, enthusiasm, and social qualities of Motherwell, rendered him very popular among his townsmen and friends. As a poet, he was happiest in pathetic or sentimental lyrics.

An eloquent writer (Mr. Turnbull) says of him :-"Motherwell was of small stature, but thick set and muscular. His head was large and finely formed; his eyes were bright and penetrating. In mixed society he was rather reserved, 'but appeared internally to enjoy the feast of reason and the flow of soul.' Somewhat pensive in his mood, he lived much in the solitude of his own thoughts, and at times gave way to a profound melancholy. This spirit pervades his poetry. The wailings of a wounded heart mingle with his fine descriptions of nature, and his lofty aspirations after the beautiful and true.