As he rushed forth a poor screaming fly to devour,
And to get his leg free was far out of his pow'r,
Secure was our spider sagacious.

Where now is the beautiful fabric of gauze?
Behold! in the centre, by one of his claws,
A dead spider is hanging surrounded by flaws
And many a struggle-made fracture.
'Twas hard, in the height of his fly-killing fun,
And sad, in the light of a Summer-day sun,
To die all alone, as that spider had done,
In a mesh of his own manufacture.

THE THREE GRACES.

I.

Her hair is as bright as the sunbeam's light,
And she walks with a regal grace,
And she bares full proud to the empty crowd
The wealth of her wondrous face;
And her haughty smile thus speaks the while:
"Approach me on bended knee!"
She's a beautiful star I could worship afar,
But--her love's not the love for me.

II.

Her hair is as black as the raven's back,
And her face--what a queenly one;
And her voice ripples out like the trembling shout
Of a Lark when he sings to the sun;
But her form is filled with a soul self-willed
That would lord o'er a luckless he;
Pride reigns in her breast, like snow in a nest,
And--her love's not the love for me.

III.

Her hair--what mind I the tint of her hair,
When her eyes are the tenderest blue;
And her loving face bears many a grace
Lit up with a sunny hue?
When I find--O I find, that her heart is kind--
That she goes not abroad to see
The World--or be seen. Her love, I ween,
Is the love that was made for me.

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.

Where now is the Summer's last Rose,
That reigned like a queen on the briar?
'T is faded! and o'er its grave glows
The glad warmth of Winter's first fire.

We welcome the Flame with delight,
As we welcomed the Rose in the Spring:
But the blossom's as nought in our sight
'Mid pleasures which Firesides bring.

And so with life's swallow-winged friends:
The Rose is adored in its day;
But when its prosperity ends
'T is cast like a puppet away.

THE STARLING AND THE GOOSE.

A FABLE.

A silly bird of waddling gait
On a common once was bred,
And brainless was his addle pate
As the stubble on which he fed;
Ambition-fired once on a day
He took himself to flight,
And in a castle all decay
He nestled out of sight.
"O why," said he, "should mind