THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.

BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.

THERE'S a flower that grows by the greenwood tree,

In its desolate beauty more dear to me,

Than all that bask in the noontide beam

Through the long, bright summer by fount and stream.
Like a pure hope nursed beneath sorrow's wing

Its timid buds from the cold moss spring,
Their delicate hues like the pink sea-shell,

Or the shaded blush of the hyacinth's bell,
Their breath more sweet than the faint perfume
That breathes from the bridal orange-bloom.

It is not found by the garden wall,

It wreaths no brow in the festive hall,

But dwells in the depths of the shadowy wood,

And shines like a star in the solitude.

Never did numbers its name prolong,

Ne'er hath it floated on wings of song,
Bard and minstrel have passed it by

And left it in silence and shade to die.
But with joy to its cradle the wild-bees come

And praise its beauty with drony hum,
And children love in the season of spring

To watch for its early blossoming.

In the dewy morn of an April day,

When the traveler lingers along the way,
When the sod is sprinkled with tender green
Where rivulets water the earth unseen,

When the floating fringe on the maple's crest
Rivals the tulip's crimson vest,

And the budding leaves of the birch-tree throw
A trembling shade on the turf below,
When my flower awakes from its dreamy rest
And yields its lips to the sweet south-west,
Then, in those beautiful days of spring,
With hearts as light as the wild-bird's wing,
Flinging their tasks and their toys aside,
Gay little groups through the wood-paths glide,
Peeping and peering among the trees

As they scent its breath on the passing breeze,
Hunting about among lichens grey

And the tangled mosses beside the way,
Till they catch the glance of its quiet eye
Like light that breaks through a cloudy sky.

For me, sweet blossom, thy tendrils cling
Still round my heart as in childhood's spring,
And thy breath, as it floats on the wandering air,
Wakes all the music of memory there.

Thou recallest the time when, a fearless child,
I roved all day through the wood-paths wild,
Seeking thy blossoms by bank and brae
Wherever the snow-drifts had melted away.

Now, as I linger mid crowds alone,

Haunted by echoes of music flown,

When the shadows deepen around my way
And the light of reason but leads astray,
When affections, nurtured with fondest care
By the trusting heart, become traitors there;
When weary of all that the world bestows
I turn to nature for calm repose,

How fain my spirit in some far glen

Would fold her wings mid thy flowers again!

THE LANGUAGE OF A FUTURE STATE.

BY ROWLAND G. HAZARD.

It is probable that in the future and more perfect state of existence, we shall possess a means of social intercourse free from ambiguity—that the pleasure of advancement will be increased by its consequent acceleration—that when deprived of the material organs, words and signs will no longer be employed-in a word, that the language of ideality, which a partial improvement of our faculties has here exhibited, will then be so perfected, that terms will be entirely dispensed with, and thought be there communicated without the intervention of any medium to distort its meaning or sully its bright

ness-that ideas will there flow directly from mind to mind, and the soul be continually exhilarated by breathing a pure congenial atmosphere, inhaling feeling, poetry, and knowledge.

This conjecture derives a further plausibility, from the consideration that our present language seems especially adapted to things material, that in the purely physical sciences we can communicate ideas with great accuracy and precision-that the difficulty of doing this increases in proportion as our feelings and the qualities of mind enter into the subject to which we endeavor to apply it, and when they become exclusively its objects, it almost entirely fails. Poetry has accomplished much more than the other forms in portraying the passions, sentiments, and all the more striking and complicated mental phenomena, but even that has shed but a feeble light over a small portion of this interesting field of research, or in bright but fitful gleams, shown the undefined vastness not yet explored. Our present language, then, is wholly inadequate to a subject, which of all others must most interest a world of spirits, as if it were intended only to carry us to the point from which we are there to start—to give us a glimpse of the infinite regions, which imagination has not yet traversed-the exhaustless sources of

thought which mind still possesses, while the language of ideality has here accomplished just enough in the exhibition of the subjects of our internal consciousnesss, to assure us that it also possesses the elements of a power, which when matured, may become the fitting instrument to gather the treasures of that unexplored immensity. But may we not go farther, and say that we have even here a foretaste, or at least a nearer approach to this angelic pleasure? Have we not witnessed the soul in all its purity and vigor, throwing off the trammels which words impose on its highest action, and, as if anticipating its conscious destiny, in a transport of impassioned thought and feeling, almost entirely discarding the usual mode of expressing them, when the eloquence of the eye anticipates the tongue, when every feature kindles with emotion, and the whole countenance is as a transparency lighted with its glowing conceptions? It is then that terms are most nearly dispensed with, and it is in this sympathetic mingling of thought and sentiment that we enjoy the purest poetry which warms the soul in its earthly tabernacle. Those who have known the raptures of such converse and have felt its exalting influence, will regard it as worthy a place in a higher sphere, and be willing to admit it to their most entrancing reveries of elysian