GOD PROVIDETH FOR THE MORROW.

Lo the lilies of the field,

How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson given
By the blessed birds of Heaven.
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy,-

66

Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!

Reginald Heber.

HEAVENLY HOPE AND EARTHLY HOPE.

Thus heavenly hope is all serene,

But earthly hope, how bright so e'er
Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene,
As false and fleeting as 'tis fair.

DEATH.

Reginald Heber.

DEATH rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower.

Reginald Heber.

MY NANNIE O.

RED rows the Nith 'tween bank and breeze,
Mirk is the night and rainie O,

Though heaven and earth should mix in storm,
I'll gang
and see my Nannie O;

My Nannie O, my Nannie O;

My kind and winsome Nannie O,
She holds my heart in love's dear bands,
And nane can do't but Nannie O.

In preaching time sae meek she stands,
Sae saintly and sae bonnie O,
I cannot get ae glimpse of grace,

For thieving looks at Nannie O;

My Nannie O, my Nannie O;
The world's in love with Nannie O;
That heart is hardly worth the wear
That wadna love my Nannie O;

Allan Cunningham, 1784-1841

BRIDAL-DAY SONG.

Ar times there come, as come there ought,
Grave moments of sedater thought-
When Fortune frowns, nor lends our night
One gleam of her inconstant light;
And Hope, that decks the peasant's bower,
Shines like the rainbow through the shower,
Oh, then I see, while seated nigh,
A mother's heart shine in thine eye;
And proud resolve and purpose meek
Speak of thee more than words can speak:
I think the wedded wife of mine

The best of all that's not divine.

Allan Cunningham.

MY AIN COUNTRIE.

THE sun rises bright in France,

And fair sets he:

But he has tint the blithe blink he had
In my ain countrie.

O gladness comes to many,

But sorrow comes to me,
As I look o'er the wide ocean
To my ain countrie.

O it's nae my ain ruin

That saddens åye my e'e,
But the love I left in Galloway,
Wi' bonnie bairnies three.
My hamely heart burned bonnie,
An' smiled my fair Marie :
I've left my hearth behind me

In my ain countrie.

Allan Cunningham.

CHILD OF THE COUNTRY.

CHILD of the Country! free as air
Art thou, and as the sunshine fair;
Born like the lily, where the dew
Lies odorous when the day is new;
Fed 'mid the May-flowers like the bee,
Nursed to sweet music on the knee,
Lull'd in the breast to that sweet tune
Which winds make 'mong the woods of June:
I sing of thee 'tis sweet to sing

Of such a fair and gladsome thing.

Allan Cunningham.

CHILD OF THE TOWN.

CHILD of the Town for thee I sigh;
A gilded roof's thy golden sky,
A carpet is thy daisied sod,

A narrow street thy boundless wood,
Thy rushing deer's the clarttering tramp
Of watchmen, thy best light's a lamp,-
Through smoke, and not through trellised vines
And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines:
I sing of thee in sadness; where

Else is wreck wrought in aught so fair?

Allan Cunningham.

A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA.

A WET sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail

And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,

Away the good ship flies, and leaves

Old England on the lee.

Allan Cunningham.

THE MORNING.

OH, come! for the lily
Is white on the lea,

Oh, come! for the wood-doves
Are paired on the tree;
The lark sings with dew

On her wings and her feet;
The thrush pours his ditty

Loud, varied, and sweet;
So come where the twin hares
'Mid fragrance have been,

And with flowers I will weave thee

A crown like a queen.

Allan Cunningham.

THOU HAST SWORN.

THOU hast sworn by thy God, my Jeanie,
By that pretty white han' o' thine,
And by all the lowing stars in heaven,
That thou wad aye be mine;

And I hae sworn by my God, my Jeanie,
And by that kind heart o' thine,

By a' the stars sown thick o'er heaven,
That thou shalt aye be mine.

Allan Cunningham.

SOWING IN SECRET.

THERE be those who sow beside
The waters that in silence glide,
Trusting no echo will declare
Whose footsteps ever wander'd there.

The noiseless footsteps pass away,
The stream flows on as yesterday;
Nor can it for a time be seen
A benefactor there had been.

Yet think not that the seed is dead
Which in the lonely place is spread;

It lives, it lives-the Spring is nigh,

And soon its life shall testify.

Bernard Barton, 1784-1849

A SPRING DIRGE.

THE Songster on the bough,

Spring's early greenness, and its opening flower,
Were joyous once :-but now
Faintly my spirit seems to feel their power.

My heart, with answering glee,

Was wont to hail "the merry month of May,

And, like the sapling tree,

To bud and blossom in its genial ray.

Now it seems cold and drear,

While birds are singing round, and flowerets blow;
As-rugged, mossed, and sere-

Stands the scathed trunk, whose sap forgets to flow.

Bernard Barton.

THE SOLITARY TOMB.

NOT a leaf of the tree which stood near me was stirr'd,
Though a breath might have moved it so lightly;
Not a farewell note from a sweet singing bird
Bade adieu to the sun setting brightly.

The sky was cloudless and calm, except

In the west, where the sun was descending;
And there the rich tints of the rainbow slept,
As his beams with their beauty were blending.

And the evening star, with its ray so clear,
So tremulous, soft, and tender,

Had lit up its lamp, and shot down from its sphere
Its dewy delightful splendor.
Bernard Barton.