A PARK SCENE.

HERE trees most prodigal of shade
With umbrage deep imbrown the glade;
Each venerable as the oak

Whence oracles of old have spoke,
Of years and leafy honours full,
Romantic, grand, and beautiful!
Some grouped less closely on the hill
Stretch out their giant arms at will
Above, below, or crowd the dell,
Or singly grace yon upland swell.
In massive majesty sedate
They stand, immovable as fate;
Some in decay-how picturesque !
Others, like sylvan Pan, grotesque :
Each fit to canopy a throne

Of royal priest-the druid's stone;
Each fit to be, so high they tower,
An emblem of the Assyrian power

* "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature, and his top was among the thick boughs."-EZEKIEL, chap. xxxi. 3.

And where breaks out the mellow mould

In shapes fantastically bold,

Entwisted in the bank above

Vast trunks projecting form a cove
O'er the calm river, that below
Reflects each gently-pendent bough;
Though here and there, half grey, half green,

Ledges of rock may intervene,

While many a trailing plant upshoots
From chasms underneath the roots.

NOTE.

P. 323, 1. 15, 16.

Each fit to canopy a throne

Of royal priest-the druid's stone.

"The oak, the statue of the Celtic Jove, was here, as in all other countries, selected for a peculiar consecration; and the Plain of Oaks, the tree of the field of adoration under which the Dalcassian chiefs were inaugurated, and the sacred Oak of Kildare, show how early and long this particular branch of the primitive worship prevailed.”—MOORE's History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 46.

See also the account of the druidical stones and groves in HENRY's History of England, vol. i. p. 176.

SPIRITS OF THE SUN.

Such miracles and dazzling sights
As genii of the sun behold

At evening from their tents of gold
Upon the horizon, where they play
Till twilight comes and, ray by ray,

The sunny mansions melt away.-MOORE.

As golden-wing'd intelligences play
In festive circle round the god of day,

They from his aspect draw a strength divine,
And mirror'd in his eyes their splendours shine.
With ever-crescent light they smile, how blest!
Their joy is by augmented light exprest!
They are more beautiful than——————loveliness
Like theirs what imagery can express,
Though it be Shelley's, radiant with the stores
That Nature from her bursting horn outpours?
They are more beautiful than early glow

Of spring, when Earth renews her youth, as now!

Brighter than rose-hues of the morn, or red
Pyrus, that garlands Beauty's flower -bed!

Through orbits of interminable light

They look-how piercing is their visual might! Discerning germs, with which all worlds are rife, Ere they expanding blossom into life!

STANZAS ON THE TIMES.

Or love, the flower that closes up for fear,

When rude and selfish spirits breathe too near.-KEBLE.

I.

THE cares of life hang heavy on our hearts—
All that was born of spirit is extinct
Within us! Soon the world its lore imparts,
With good, as far as sense unites it, link'd

To minds with heaven-sown virtue once instinct.
Each in his generation wise, pursues

Gain, or a good as palpable, distinct.

Few, like the maid beloved of Heaven, will choose
The better part-what win they for the prize they lose?

II.

A stream spontaneous flowing from the heart

Of love divine, an ardent zeal for truth,

Wanting no aid from oratory's art

These these pervade not now, as once, our youth