Though wayward passions round him close,
And fame and fortune prove his foes;
Through every change of good and ill,
Unchanged, a mother loves him still.
Even love itself, than life more dear,-
Its interchange of hope and fear;
Its feeling oft a-kin to madness;
Its fevered joys, and anguish-sadness;
Its melting moods of tenderness,
And fancied wrongs, and fond redress,
Hath nought to form so strong a tie
As her deep sympathies supply.

And when those kindred chords are broken

Which twine around the heart;

When friends their farewell word have spoken, And to the grave depart;

When parents, brothers, husband, die,

And desolation only

At every step meets her dim eye,

Inspiring visions lonely,—

Love's last and strongest root below,
Which widowed mothers only know,
Watered by each successive grief,
Puts forth a fresher, greener leaf:
Divided streams unite in one,
And deepen round her only son;
And when her early friends are gone,
She lives and breathes in him alone."

OU HIS BROTHER'S DEATH.

WHEN evening's lengthened shadows fall
On cottage roof and princely hall,

Then brothers with their brothers meet,
And kindred hearts each other greet,
And children wildly, gladly press,
To share a father's fond caress:

But home to me no more can bring
Those scenes which are life's sweetening.

No friendly heart remains for me,
Like star to gild life's stormy sea,

No brother, whose affection warm

The gloomy passing hours might charm.

Bereft of all who once were dear,

Whose words or looks were wont to cheer;

Parent, and friend, and brother gone,

I stand upon the earth alone.

ROBERT NICOLL.

1814-1837.

ROBERT NICOLL was born in the farm house of Little Tulliebeltane, in the parish of Auchtergaven, in Perthshire. His father was at that time a farmer in comfortable circumstances, but shortly after the poet's birth, lost all his property through the dishonesty of a relative for whom he had become security. Robert was, therefore, brought up in the most humble circumstances, and inured to labor from his earliest years. But we cannot do better than present the following eloquent sketch from the North British Review:

"Perhaps the young peasant who most expressly stands out as the pupil and successor of Burns, is Robert Nicoll. He is a lesser poet, doubtless, than his master, and a lesser man, if the size and number of his capabilities be looked at; but he is a greater man, in that, from the beginning to the end of his career, he seems to have kept that very wholeness of heart and head which poor Burns lost. Nicoll's story is, mutatis mutandis, that of the Bethunes, and many a noble young Scotsman more. Parents holding a farm between Perth and Dunkeld, they and theirs before them for generations inhabitants of the neighborhood, "decent, honest, God-fearing people." The farm is lost by reverses, and manfully Robert Nicoll's father becomes a day-laborer on the fields which he lately rented; and there begins, for the boy, from his earliest recollections, a life of steady, sturdy drudgery. But they must have been grand old folk these parents, and in nowise addicted to wringing their hands over "the great might-have-been." Like true Scots Biblelovers, they do believe in a God, and in a will of God, underlying, absolute, loving, and believe that the might-have-been ought not to have

been; and so they put their shoulders to the new collar patiently, cheerfully, hopefully, and teach the boys to do the same. The mother especially, like so many great men's mothers do, stands out large and heroic, from the time when, the farm being gone, she, "the ardent book woman," finds her time too precious to be spent in reading, and sets little Robert to read to her as she works-what a picture!—to the last sad day, when, wanting money to come up to Leeds to see her dying darling, she "shore for the siller," rather than borrow it. And her son's life is like her own-the most pure, joyous, valiant little epic. Robert does not even take to work as something beyond himself, uninteresting and painful, which, however must be done courageously: he lives in it, enjoys it as his proper element, one which is no more a burden to him than the rush of the strid is to the trout, who plays and feeds in it day and night, unconscious of the amount of muscular strength which he puts forth in merely keeping his place in the stream. Whether carrying Kenilworth in his plaid to the woods, to read while herding, or acting as the Perth storekeeper's apprentice, or keeping his little circulating library in Dundee, tormenting his pure heart with the thought of the twenty pounds which his mother has borrowed wherewith to start him, or editing the Leeds Times, or lying on his early death bed, just as life seems to be opening clear and broad before him, he

"Bates not a jot of heart or hope,"

but steers right onward, singing over his work, without bluster, or selfgratulation, but for very joy at having work to do."

THE MORVĮ VE STAR.

THY smile of beauty, star!

Brings gladness on the gloomy face of night-
Thou comest from afar,

Pale mystery! so lonely and so bright,
A thing of dreams-a vision from on high-
A virgin spirit-light-a type of purity!

Star! nightly wanderest thou
Companionless along thy far, cold way:-
From time's first breath till now,

On thou hast flitted like an ether fay!

Where is the land from whence thou first arose ;
And where the place of light to which thy pathway gres?

Pale dawn's first messenger !

Thou prophet-sign of brightness yet to be!

Thou tellest earth and air

Of light and glory following after thee;

Of smiling day 'mong wild green woodlands sleeping; And God's own sun, o'er all, its tears of brightness weep

ing!