The language of childhood is the language of the imagination and of the affections: it is often unpremedicated poetry; or, as Hannah More lias more correctly expressed it, it furnishes some excellent materials for poetry: but to those who have unhappily lost their sympathies with innocence, human character is only of interest after it has commenced its career of folly, vanity, and crime.

I am coming—I am coming
From yon field of many flowers,
Where the sweetest of earth's blossoms
Bespangle fairy bowers;
I am bringing—I am bringing
A cliaplet for your brow—
So you must not call me truant,
Nor be angry with me now.

I have wander'd—I have wander'd
Where the lark was on the wing,
And the black-bird chanting anthems
To the young and flowery spring;
And there were village maidens,
With delight upon their brow ;
So you should not call me truant,
Nor be angry with me now.

As we sported—as we sported,
We heard the bull-finch sing,
And one swallow flitted by us
On his swift and glossy wing.
Why, father, all is gladness,
Wliere the deep ting'd hlosscmis grow-
So you should not call me truant,
Nor be angry with me—no !

You said some little people,
From the fields of fairy land.
Might be tripping elfin circles
On the bright and yellow sand ;
Or that some passing angel
From his cloudy car might bow ;
Is he, like me, a truant ?
Who is angry with us now ?
ANSWER.

Not the father—not the father
Of the rosy, joyous spring,
To whom the spirit's gladness
Is the sweetest earthly thing ;
As each wild flower spends its fragnance
Each heart to him should bow—
So I will not call you truant,
Nor be angry with you now.