And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, Still chirps as merrily as then.

Thou changest not-but I am changed,
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,

Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past—
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I've tried the world-it wears no more

The coloring of romance it wore.

Yet well has Nature kept the truth
She promised to my earliest youth.
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away, And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold My ashes in the embracing mould, (If haply the dark will of fate Indulge my life so long a date,) May come for the last time to look Upon my childhood's favorite brook. Then dimly on my eye shall gleam The sparkle of thy dancing stream; And faintly on my ear shall fall Thy prattling current's merry call; Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright As when thou met'st my infant sight.

And I shall sleep-and on thy side, As ages after ages glide, Children their early sports shall try, And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged from year to year, Gayly shalt play and glitter here; Amid young flowers and tender grass Thy endless infancy shalt pass;

And, singing down thy narrow glen,

Shalt mock the fading race of men.

MARCH.

THE stormy March is come at last,

With wind, and cloud, and changing skies,

I hear the rushing of the blast,

That through the snowy valley flies.

Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild stormy month! in praise of thee;

Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.

VOL. I.-5*

For thou, to northern lands, again

The glad and glorious sun dost bring, And thou hast joined the gentle train And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

And, in thy reign of blast and storm,
Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day,
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And heaven puts on the blue of May.

Then sing aloud the gushing rills:
From winter's durance just set free,
And brightly leaping down the hills,
Begin their journey to the sea.

The year's departing beauty hides
Of wintry storms the sullen threat;

But in thy sternest frown abides

A look of kindly promise yet.