SPRING’S ADVENT.

I looked forth on the world to-day, As waked the rosy morn, And every budding leaf and blade Proclaimed the Spring was born. The southern wind’s seductive wiles My footsteps lured along Far from the town’s unlovely ways, Far from its madding throng. O sweet the first glad greeting is With nature, when the Spring Is spreading forth her tender charms, And flowers are blossoming! O sweet to tread the soft green earth When fresh the breezes blow, Untrammelled by a thought of care, And free to come or go! The lambs were bleating on the hills Where farmsteads nestling lie, Safe sheltered from the rude fierce blasts That storm the hill-tops high. The swallow’s glanced on flashing wing; Dear birds of promise they, That speak the reign of winter past, Dawn of a brighter day. Down from the heavens the poet-lark His numbers madly flung In liquid notes of purest joy, That through the valley rung; And leaping streams, from winter’s yoke So glad to be set free, Took up the jocund minstrelsy, And bore it to the sea. In sportive glee the children trooped The meadow-paths along, And carolled forth, in happy voice, A careless snatch of song. Ah, well they know the sunlit spot Where first the primrose sweet Looks out upon the wooded copse The waking earth to greet. O happy children! life to you Is full of light and flowers; Athwart whose skies of tender blue No threatening storm-cloud lowers. I wonder, do ye ever think Of children far away, Who only see through vistas dim God’s glorious light of day! Whose lives are spent in narrow streets, Or alleys foul with sin; Where squalor, poverty, and death, Alas! are rife within. No fresh pure winds their tresses blow, Green fields they never trod, Or plucked the nodding flowers that grow Fresh from the hand of God. O little children! young, yet old In life’s excess of woe, I dread for you the dreary ways Your faltering feet must go. O little eyes, that never yet Beheld a lovely thing, I wonder what your joy shall be Through God’s eternal Spring! Charles H. Barstow.