THE OWL.
Thou hermit bird of tender sight!
Ha! well thou fliest from the light,
To lie in secret and repose,
Hid in some crevice no one knows;
And, wrapt in slumber’s lightest sleep,
Thy ears their vigils ever keep,
Lest some stray wanderer may intrude,
To mar thy sacred solitude.
Thy pinions only bear thee out
To search for plunder and to scout
For prey, in soft and noiseless flight,
When earth lies in repose, and night
Has drawn her curtain o’er the sky.
’Tis then, ’tis then thy tender eye
Is keen to see, reviewing all
Which under its quick glance may fall.
MINNIE LEE.
a picture.
A maiden came to Castletown;
A tear stood in her eye;
Soon on her cheek it trickled down;
Sore did the maiden cry.
I called her to my side, and said,
“Why, maiden, do you cry?”
A while her weeping then was stayed,
But she made no reply.
I spoke to her, in kindly tones,
Of friendship and of love;
I asked about her lovéd ones,
And where she meant to rove.
She, with a voice in sadness lost,
And choked with many a sigh,
Said that her father’s form was toss’d
Beneath the billows high.
Her mother had for many years
Been silent in the grave;
Her brother, too, she told in tears,
Was killed—a soldier brave.
And now her father’s friends withheld
The friendship once they gave;
And she, an orphan lone, beheld
No succour but the grave.
She then besought some menial form
Of duty to fulfil,
And gladly would the child conform
To many a trying ill.