HE hath risen up from her morning prayer,
And chained the waves of her golden hair;

Hath kissed her sleeping sister's cheek,

And breathed the blessing she might not speak,

Lest the whisper should break the dream that smiled

. Round the snow-white brow of the sinless child.

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A MORNING PICTURE.

Her radiant lamb and her purpling dove
Have ta'en their food from the hand they love;
The low, deep coo, and the plaintive bleat

In the morning calm, how clear and sweet;

Ere the sun has warmed the dawning hours
She hath watered the glow of her garden flowers,
And welcomed the hum of the earliest bee
In the moist bloom working drowsily;

Then up the flow of the rocky rill

She trips away to the pastoral hill;
And as she lifts her glistening eyes,

In the joy of her heart, to the dewy skies,
She feels that her sainted parents bless
The life of their orphan shepherdess.

'Tis a lonely glen! but the happy child

Hath friends whom she meets in the morning wild,

As on she trips, her native stream,

Like her, hath awoke from a joyful dream,

And glides away by her twinkling feet,

With a face as bright and a voice as sweet.
In the ozier bank, the ouzel sitting
Hath heard her steps, and away is flitting

From stone to stone, as she glides along,
Then sinks in the stream with a broken song.
The lapwing, fearless of his nest,

Stands looking round with his delicate crest;

For a love-like joy is in his cry

As he wheels, and darts, and glances by.

Is the heron asleep on the silvery sand.
Of his little lake? Lo! his wings expand

A MORNING PICTURE.

As a dreamy thought, and withouten dread
Cloud-like he floats o'er the maiden's head.
She looks to the birch-wood glade, and lo!
There is browsing there the mountain roe,
Who lifts up her gentle eyes, nor moves,
As on glides the form whom all nature loves.
Having spent in heaven an hour of mirth,
The lark drops down to the dewy earth,
And a silence smooths his yearning breast
In the gentle folds of his lowly nest;
The linnet takes up the hymn, unseen,
In the yellow broom, or the bracken green;
And now, as the morning hours are glowing,
From the hill-side cots the cocks are crowing,
And the shepherd's dog is barking shrill
From the mist fast rising from the hill,
And the shepherd's self, with locks of gray,
Hath blessed the maiden on her way!
And now she sees her own dear flock
On a verdant mound beneath the rock,
All close together, in beauty and love,
Like the small, fair clouds in heaven above;
And her innocent soul, at the peaceful sight,
Is swimming o'er with a still delight.

JOHN WILSON.

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