quenters of the parterre. Whether this be imputed to the effect of light, or the breathing influence of a flowery atmosphere, and the tendency of all things to produce their similitudes, there lies beneath the natural fact a moral analogy applicable to ourselves. From "ACHETA DOMESTICA." THE DRAGON-FLY. FROM THE GERMAN. Flutter, flutter gently by, On thy four transparent wings! Hover, hover o'er the rill, More than half thy little life, In a dark and dim retreat. Now the nymph, transformed, may roam, Where'er the zephyrs shall invite; Love is now thy envious care- But thy very love is flight. Heedless of thy coming doom, Confide thy offspring to the stream, They, too, may quit their watery cell; Then die! I see each weary limb Declines to fly, declines to swim: Thou lovely, short-lived sylph, farewell! Translation of W. TAYLOR. JOHANN GOTTFRIED V. HERDER, 1744-1803. TO AN INSECT. I love to hear thine earnest voice, Thou pretty Katydid! Thou mindest me of gentlefolks Old gentlefolks are they ; Thou art a female, Katydid! I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes, So petulant and shrill. I think there is a knot of you O tell me, where did Katy live, Or kiss more cheeks than one? I warrant Katy did no more Than many a Kate has done. Dear me! I'll tell you all about My fuss with little Jane, And Ann, with whom I used to walk So often down the lane, And all that tore their locks of black. Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, Ah, no! the living oak shall crash, That stood for ages still; The rock shall rend its rocky base, And thunder down the hill, Before the little Katydid Shall add one word to tell The mystic story of the maid Whose name she knows so well. Peace to the ever-murmuring race! Shall fold in death her feeble wings Beneath the autumn sun, Then shall she raise her fainting voice, And then the child of future years Shall hear what Katy did. O. W. HOLMES. THE GRASSHOPPER. There is the grasshopper, my summer friend- My soul in search thereof by bank and bower, To climb the steep, and down the blossom drag; Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome, Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern, And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam, He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn, 'Mid chalices with dews in every urn; All flying things alike delight have foundWhere'er I gaze, to what new region turn, Ten thousand insects in the air abound, Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer's sound. JEREMIAH HOLME WIFFIN, 1792-1836. XV. The Streams. A VOLUME of general selections from English rural verse would be incomplete without some passage from Denham's poem of " Cooper's Hill"-a poem so highly lauded by past generations, and which we still read to-day with admiration. Sir John Denham is one of those poets who have met with very opposite treatment from critics of different generations; after receiving the highest commendations from Dryden, from Johnson, from Pope, from Somerville, his bays have been very severely handled in our own time. But allowing him to have been over-praised at one period, shall we for that reason refuse ourselves the pleasure he is assuredly capable of affording us? Is not " Cooper's Hill" a fine old poem of the second class, which the nineteenth century does well to read once in a while? The celebrated lines, quoted a thousand times, "Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull, were amusingly parodied some fifty years ago by Mr. Soame Jenyns, in his satire upon an unfledged, ignorant memberling of Parliament: "Without experience, honesty, or sense, Unknowing in her interests, trade, or laws, Though shallow, muddy; brisk, though mighty dull; THE STREAMS. ARIEL'S SONG. Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands; Curt'sied when you have, and kind (The wild waves whist), Foot it featly, here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear! Hark! hark! The watch-dogs bark; Hark! hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry cock-a-doodle-doo! SHAKSTEARS. THE THAMES. FROM "COOPER'S HILL." Thames, the most lov'd of all the Ocean's sons, By his old sire, to his embraces runs ; Hasty to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal life to meet eternity, Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, |