Earth is a sea of verdure. Blossoms springing All gem-like dewy from the velvet sod, Like whispered melody their perfume flinging, Earth’s altar’d incense rising up to God,— Whose word I read in there as in his book, When e’er their beauties meet my eager look. Thro’ laughing verdure silvery is straying, Reflecting, mirror-like, the pure calm sky, A babbling stream, o’er rock and lichen playing, Sweet as the softness of a loved one’s sigh— Floating along with harmony as rife As pass the hours in some bright day of life. The river far away is calmly stealing, Thro’ its green banks all glittering with light, Like beaming fancies in the poet’s feeling, Who worships ever all that’s fair and bright; Creating images that living start Warm from the gushings of his burning heart. Yes! this is spring time, mild and glorious spring, When earth is like a paradise, and gay With birds, and buds, and flowers, and everything, Whose beauties serve to gild awhile life’s clay. Bidding hearts revel in enjoyment wild, Making one happy even as a child. * * * * * SCHOOL-BOY RECOLLECTIONS. A FROLIC AMONG THE LAWYERS.—A SCENE FROM LIFE. BY T. W. THOMAS, AUTHOR OF “HOWARD PINCKNEY,” ETC. I was born in New Orleans. I had very bad health there in my early childhood, and “My Aunt Betsey,” of whom I have before spoken, took a voyage by sea from Baltimore to the “crescent city,” for the purpose of returning with me to a climate which the physicians had said would strengthen my constitution. She brought me up with the greatest kindness, or rather, I should say she kept me comparatively feeble by her over-care of my health. When I was about fourteen years of age, my father brought my mother and my little sister Virginia on from New Orleans to see me. My meeting with my kind mother I shall never forget. She held me at arms’ length for an instant, to see if she could recognise, in the chubby, healthy boy before her, the puny, sickly child with whom she had parted with such fond regret on board the Carolina, but a few years before; and when, in memory and in heart, she recognized each lineament, she clasped me to her bosom with a wild hysteric joy which compensated her, more than compensated her, she said, for all the agony which our separation had caused her. I loved my mother devotedly, yet I wondered at the emotion which she exhibited at our meeting, and, child though I was, a sense of unworthiness came over me, possibly because my affections could not sound the depths of hers.