The silken down of happiness complete!
Discerner of the ripest grapes of joy
She gathered, and selected with her hand,
All finest relishes, all fairest sights,
All rarest odours, all divinest sounds,

All thoughts, all feelings dearest to the soul;

And brought the holy mixture home, and filled
The heart with all superlatives of bliss.

But who would that expound which words transcends
Must talk in vain. Behold a meeting scene

Of early love, and thence infer its worth.

POLLOK.

DOMESTIC LOVE.

OMESTIC Love! not in proud palace halls
Is often seen thy beauty to abide;

Thy dwelling is in lonely cottage walls.

That in the thickets of the woodbine hide,

With hum of bees around, and from the side

Of woody hills some little bubbling spring

Shining along through banks with harebells dyed;

And many a bird to warble on the wing,

When Morn her saffron robe o'er heaven and earth doth

fling.

Oh, Love of loves! to thy white hand is given

Of earthly happiness the golden key.

Thine are the joyous hours of winter's even,

When the babes cling around their father's knee; And thine the voice that on the midnight sea, Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home, Peopling the gloom with all he longs to see. Spirit! I've built a shrine, and thou hast come, And on its altar closed, for ever closed thy plume!

CROLY.

DOMESTIC LOVE.

UT happy they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.

'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,

Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love:

Where Friendship full exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem, enlivened by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence; for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
O speak the joy, ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss;
All various Nature pressing on the heart;
An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!

THOMSON.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

(HERE is in all this cold and hollow world no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within A mother's heart.—It is but pride, wherewith To his fair son the father's eye doth turn, Watching his growth. Ay, on the boy he looks, The bright glad creature springing in his path, But as the heir of his great name, the young And stately tree, whose rising strength ere long Shall bear his trophies well.—And this is love!