THE RESTORED PICTURE.

In later years, veiling its unblest face
In a most loathsome place,
The cheap adornment of a house of
shame,

It hung, till, gnawed away
By tooth of slow decay,

It fell, and parted from its mouldering frame.

The rotting canvas, faintly smiling still,

From worldly puff and frill, Its ghastly smile of coquetry and pride,

Crumpling its faded charms And yellow jewelled arms, Mere rubbish now, was rudely cast aside.

The shadow of a Genius crossed the

gate:

He, skilled to re-create In old and ruined paintings their lost

soul

The Art that slept beneath.A chrysalis in its sheath, That waited to be waked to life again.

Upon enduring canvas to renew

Each wondrous trait and hue,This is the miracle, his chosen task! He bears it to his house,

And there from lips and brows With loving touch removes their alien mask.

For so on its perfection time had laid

An early mellowing shade; Then hands unskilled, each seeking to impart

Fresh tints to form and face. With some more modern grace, Had buried quite the mighty Master's Art.

I watch the slow flakes as they fall On bank and brier and broken wall. Over the orchard, waste and brown, All noiselessly they settle down,

Tipping the apple-boughs, and each Light quivering twig of plum and peach.

On turf and curb and bower-roof The snow storm spreads its ivory woof;

It paves with pearl the garden walk; And lovingly round tattered stalk And shivering stem its magic weaves A mantle fair as lily-leaves.

The hooded beehive, small and low, Stands like a maiden in the snow; And the old door-slab is half hid Under an alabaster lid.

All day it snows: the sheeted post
Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
All day the blasted oak has stood
A muffled wizard of the wood;
Garland and airy cap adorn
The sumach and the wayside thorn.
And clustering spangles lodge and
shine

In the dark tresses of the pine.

The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
In surplice white the cedar stands,
And blesses him with priestly hands.

Still cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree:
But in my inmost ear is heard
The music of a holier bird;
And heavenly thoughts, as soft and
white

As snow-flakes, on my soul alight,
Clothing with love my lonely heart,
Healing with peace each bruised
part,

Till all my being seems to be
Transfigured by their purity.

MIDSUMMER.

BECALMED along the azure sky,
The argosies of cloudland lie,
Whose shores, with many a shining
rift,

Through all the long midsummerday

The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.

I seek the coolest sheltered seat, Just where the field and forest meet,

Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland,

The ancient oaks austere and grand, And fringy roots and pebbles fret The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers, as they go Through the tall grass, a whitesleeved row.

With even stroke their scythes they swing,

In tune their merry whetstones ring. Behind the nimble youngsters run, And toss the thick swaths in the sun. The cattle graze, while, warm and still,

Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,

And bright, where summer breezes break.

The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and bumble-bee
Come to the pleasant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits.
Sweet woodland music sinks and
swells,

The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum.

The partridge beats his throbbing drum,

The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house.
The oriole flashes by; and look!

Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his

As silently, as tenderly,

The down of peace descends on me. O, this is peace! I have no need

sions,

ever"!

larches,

Maples and pines, and stately firs of Norway,

Build round me their green pyramids and arches;

Sweetly the robin sings, while slowly marches

The stately pageant past my verdant doorway.

enters,

Shakes off the dust of earth, no more to roam.

His trial ended, sealed his soul's indentures,

The wanderer, weary from his long adventures,

Beholds the peace of his eternal home.

ALL round the lake the wet woods shake

From drooping boughs their showers of pearl; From floating skiff to towering cliff The rising vapors part and curl. The west-wind stirs among the firs High up the mountain side emerging;

The light illumes a thousand plumes Through billowy banners round them surging.

A glory smites the craggy heights:
And in a halo of the haze.
Flushed with faint gold, far up, behold
That mighty face, that stony gaze!
In the wild sky upborne so high

Above us perishable creatures, Confronting Time with those sublime,

Impassive, adamantine, features.

Thou beaked and bald high front, miscalled

The profile of a human face! No kin art thou, O Titan brow,

To puny man's ephemeral race. The groaning earth to thee gave birth,

Throes and convulsions of the planet;

Lonely uprose, in grand repose,

Those eighty feet of facial granite.

Here long, while vast, slow ages passed,

Thine eyes (if eyes be thine) beheld But solitudes of crags and woods. Where eagles screamed and panthers yelled.