The Summer’s in her ark, And this sunny-pinion’d day Is commission’d to remark Whether Winter holds her sway; Go back, thou dove of peace, With the myrtle on thy wing, Say that floods and tempests cease, And the world is ripe for Spring. Thou hast fann’d the sleeping Earth Till her dreams are all of flowers, And the waters look in mirth For their overhanging bowers; The forest seems to listen For the rustle of its leaves, And the very skies to glisten In the hope of summer eves. Thy vivifying spell Has been felt beneath the wave, By the dormouse in its cell, And the mole within its cave; And the summer tribes that creep, Or in air expand their wing, Have started from their sleep, At the summons of the Spring. The cattle lift their voices From the valleys and the hills, And the feather’d race rejoices With a gush of tuneful bills; And if this cloudless arch Fills the poet’s song with glee, O thou sunny first of March, Be it dedicate to thee! This beautiful poem has afforded me exquisite gratification. Till I saw it printed in Mr. Dyce’s “Specimens of British Poetesses,” I was ignorant that a living lady had written so delightfully. Without a friend at my elbow to instruct me whether I should prefix “Miss” or “Mrs.” to her felicitous name, I transcribe--as I find it in Mr. Dyce’s volume--FELICIA HEMANS. Vol. I.--10. [Illustration: ~The Story of the Scotch Soldier.~] “Upon my soul it’s a fact.” MATTHEWS--_and Self_. _For the Table Book._ “Is the master at home, sir?” said a broad-shouldered Scotchman (wearing a regimental coat of the ---- regiment, and with his bonnet in his hand) to myself, who had answered a ring at the office-bell. I replied that he was not. “Weel, that’s onlucky, sir,” said he, “for ye see, sir, a hae goten a pertection here, an’ a hae been till a’ the Scotchmen that a can hear ony thing o’, but they hae a’ signed for the month; an’ a hae a shorteness o’ brith, that wunna lat me wurk or du ony thing; an’ a’d be vary glaid gin a cud git doon to Scoteland i’ the nixt vaissel, for a hanna’ a baubee; an’, as a sid afore, a canna wurk, an’ gin maister B. wud jist sign ma pertection, a hae twa seagnatures, an’ a’d git awa’ the morn.” For once I had told no lie in denying Mr. B. to his visitor, and, therefore, in no dread of detection from cough, or other vivâ voce evidence, I ushered the “valiant Scot” into the _sanctum_ of a lawyer’s clerk.