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SUMMER LONGINGS.

H! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May; Waiting for the pleasant rambles, Where the fragrant hawthorne brambles With the woodbine alternating

Scent the dewy way;

Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May;
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May;

Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
Hopes and flowers, that dead or dying,
All the winter lay.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May;
Throbbing for the sea-side billows,
Or the water-wooing willows,
Where, in laughing and in sobbing,

Glide the streams away.

Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing. Throbbing for the May.

Waiting, sad, dejected, weary,
Waiting for the May;
Spring goes by with wasted warnings,
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings;
Summer comes, yet, dark and dreary,
Life still ebbs away;

Man is ever weary, weary,

Waiting for the May.

DENIS FLORENCE MCCARTHY.

A DREAM OF SUMMER.
LAND as the morning breath of June

BLAN southwest breezes play;

And through its haze, the winter noon
Seems warm as summer's day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North
Has dropped his icy spear;

Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
The musk-rat leaves his nook;
The blue-bird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
"Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
"Our winter voices prophesy

Of summer days to thee."

So, in these winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear
O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear.

Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,

And how, beneath the winter's snow,
Lie germs of summer flowers.

The Night is mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring;
And ever, upon old decay

The greenest mosses cling;
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God who loveth all his works,
Has left his hope with all!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THEY COME! THE MERRY SUMMER MONTHS.

THE

HEY come! the merry summer months of beauty, song and flowers;

They come! the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers.

Up, up, my heart, and walk abroad; fling cark and care aside;

Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide;

Or underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree,

Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquility.

The grass is soft, its velvet touch is grateful to the hand,

And like the kiss of maiden love the breeze is sweet and bland;

The daisy and the buttercup are nodding courteously;

It stirs their blood with kindest love, to bless and welcome thee;

a mighty heart of joy!

Through the blooming groves we rusti-,

Kissing every bud we pass,

As we did it in the bustle,
Scarcely knowing how it was.

Down the glen, across the mountain, O'er the yellow heath we roam, Whirling round about the fountain Till its little breakers foam.

Bending down the weeping willows,
While our vesper hymn we sigh;
Then unto our rosy pillows
On our weary wings we hie.

There of idlenesses dreaming, Scarce from waking we refrain, Moments long as ages deeming Till we're at our play again.

GEORGE DARLEY.

"CARPE DIEM."

[OW, in the season of flowers,

Now we sing, and now we mourn, Now we whistle, now we sigh.

By the grassy-fringed river,

When Phoebus stays long with the hours, And the earth hardly knows any night, The time for enjoyment is ours,

The time for delight.

Ere the chill winds have scattered the roses,
Ere the petals lie dead on the earth;
Ere the season of sweet blossoms closes,

And the cold winter months have their birth,

Let us join, ere the year its youth loses,
In laughter and mirth.

Ah, sweet, youth can last not forever,

But will fade like a dream that is naught, Though we fancy that summer dies never, And on winter bestow not a thought; But Time is a weariless weaver, His task is soon wrought.

'Mid the lily-leaves we quiver,

To their very hearts we creep.

Now the maiden rose is blushing
At the frolic things we say;
While aside her cheek we're rushing
Like some truant bees at play.

As to what the dim future may bring,

But we'll cast off each thought that oppresses.

For life is a fugitive thing;

And, happy in love's soft caresses,
We'll dream but of Spring.

ANONYMOUS.

THE

Were dashed with meagre tints of early Spring,

Lift now their rustling domes and cannonades,

And from the airy battlements they fling Their banners to the wind, and in the glades Spread rich pavilions for the Summer's king.

Now lifts the love-lit soul, and life's full tide Swells from the ground and beats the trembling air,

hold

When first the young year saw the vernal moon,

And lipped the yielding banks whose moistened mould

Slipped mingling with the flood, now sleep at noon,

Calm as the imaged hills which they enfold, All glimmering in the long, long skies of June.

The brindled meadow hides the winding path With interlacing clover, white and red;