THE MAID’S FIRST LOVE.

  The maiden heard a light foot on the floor,
  And sidelong looked, and there before her stood
  Young Eustace Graeme:  far from the pasture moor
  He came:  the fragrance of the dale and wood
  Was scenting all his garments green and good. 
  A sudden flush when tie the maiden saw,
  Burned through his temples, kindled up his blood—­
  His stifling breath waxed nigh too tight to draw,
  He bowed, and silent stood in wonderment and awe.

  The father smiled, the mother smiled.  Now why
  Are her eyes downcast and his white brow glowing? 
  Say, have they vowed while heaven was witness by
  With all her radiant lights like fountains flowing,
  To love while water runs and woods are growing,
  And stars glowed conscious of the compact pure? 
  They never woo’d, nor, love for love bestowing. 
  Met with the moonshine in the green-wood bow’r,
  Nor looked and sighed, and looked and drank love by the hour.

  Yet they have met.  Though not fools of the flock,
  On whom love like the tiger gives one bound. 
  And then the heart is rent—­a thunderstroke
  That makes men dust before they hear the sound—­
  A shaft that leaves dark venom in the wound—­
  A frost that all the buds of manhood nips—­
  A sea of passion in which true love’s drowned—­
  A demon strangling virtue in his grips—­
  A day when reason’s son is quenched in dread eclipse.

  True gentle love is like the summer dew,
  Which falls around when all is still and hush—­
  And falls unseen until its bright drops strew
  With odours, herb and flower, and bank, and bush
  O love, when womanhood is in the flush,
  And man’s a young and an unspotted thing! 
  His first breathed word and her half conscious blush,
  Are fair us light in heaven, or flowers in spring—­
  The first hour of true love is worth our worshipping.

LOVE OF COUNTRY.

  “I would not leave old Scotland’s mountain gray,
  Her hills, her cots, her halls, her groves of pine,
  Dark though they be:  yon glen, yon broomy brae,
  Yon wild fox cleugh, yon eagle cliffs outline
  An hour like this—­this white right-hand of thine,
  And of thy dark eyes such a gracious glance,
  As I got now, for all beyond the line,
  And all the glory gained by sword or lance,
  In gallant England, Spain, or olive vales of France.”

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Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand. (near Somerset House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; G.G.  BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris, and by all Newsmen and Booksellers.