FERN FROM NIAGARA.

STRANGE is the influence that clings
To treasured tokens of the past,
And gives to most familiar things
Enchantments that shall bind us fast.

A splinter, any trifle small
From SHAKESPEARE'S house, has more to-day
Of deep suggestiveness than all
His best biographers can say.

With what devout idolatry,
What holy love, what tender care,
The mourning mother guards for aye
A tress of her dead darling's hair!

A maiden takes her jewel box
To while an idle hour away,
Or chose a bauble for her locks.
Humming the while some carol gay;

A ring, or faded violet —
Some lover's gift in earlier years —
Touches the spring of love's regret,
And softens all her soul to tears!

And thus, as on this simple leaf,
This rainy night, I muse and pour,
I hear the thunder of the chief
Of all the cataracts that roar!

I see the sheeted splendors glance,
Bathed in the warm, prismatic light,
And foam-bows that dissolve or dance,
Elf-BLONDINS, up and down the height!

What man may holier baptism boast,
Though clothed in all the pomp of earth,
Than that affusion most august.
That solemnized this nursling's birth;

Which, dinging to the fostering side
Of that great wall, rejoiced and grew,
And trembled at the tumbling tide,
Drenched in its glories and its dew!

For this I bold the trifle dear,
For this I ponder on it long,
And guard it safely, year by year,
And weave its tendrils in my song.

H S C.