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CHURCH MUSIC.

The organ rolls its breath in volumes round
The pillar'd galleries, and woman's voice
Out of the tumult like a rocket shoots,
And into the big music comes again
In bells of falling melody.

ANONYMOUS.

BEAUTY.

Compare her eyes,

Not to the sun, for they do shine by night:
Not to the moon, for they are changing never :
Not to the stars, for they have purer light:
Not to the fire, for they consume not ever :
But to the Maker's self, they lik'st be,

Whose light doth lighten all things here we see.

SPENSER.

EYES.

Those eyes, those eyes, how full of heaven they are, When the calm twilight leaves the heaven most holy : Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star

Did

ye drink in your liquid melancholy :
Tell me, beloved eyes.

BULWER.

INNOCENCE.

We were as twin'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we changed Was innocence for innocence; we knew not

The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dream'd

That any

did.

SHAKSPERE.

THE WOODLAND WAITS.

The author of this very beautiful poem is not known to us. We found it in an old collection of fugitive poetry.

THE trees were tall and leafy

Around our home that

grew

Where a noble German river ran
The green old forest through;
The wild fawn and the stately stag
Went by our open door,

And the birds about our cottage eaves
They sang for evermore.

'Twas sweet on April's morning,
'Twas sweet in summer's noon,
And when above the tallest pines
Up rose the harvest moon,
To hear our children's laughter ring
From out the ancient shade,
Or the music in our land's old songs,
Their mingled voices made.

And when the winds blew colder,
At the good Christmas time,

They gather'd round our woodland hearth
With sport, and tale, and rhyme.
The traveller mark'd our evening fire
Far through the frost-gemm'd boughs,
But I know how bright its red light fell
Upon their fair young brows.

'Twas first our rosy Segelind
That pined away and died,
And then our thoughtful Ludovic
We laid him by her side.
And last our little fair Louise-
I think we loved her best-
Smiled on us as we watch'd one night,
And went with them to rest.

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We toil'd together in the fields
For many a sultry day,

Yet our hearts were in our children's graves
By the old church far away.

The woods wore autumn's riches,
The beechen nuts grew brown,
The stormy winds of winter came
And shook the red leaves down,
And we had work'd, and we had pray'd,,
And said we would not grieve,
But the cottage was a dreary place

As fell that Christmas eve.

The frost was on the forest,
The full moon in the sky,

And we tried to cheer each other's hearts,
My Ernestine and I,

With talk of far-off Christmas times,

And how the blithe waits sung
At midnight in the brave old town
We left when we were young.

But oh! the worldless memories
Came o'er us thick and fast,
With glad young voices ringing back
From all the nearer past!

We thought of those who wreath'd our door
With holly boughs and leaves,

And sung their hymn by moonlight there
On other Christmas eves.

There rose a sound of singing
Close by our cottage door,

And such a strain the sleeping woods
Had never heard before.

You'll say it was a dream-but well

We knew the voices three

For our lost children sang that night
To Ernestine and me.

They sang no hymn nor carol

Our memory could discern,

But, friend, it was that blessed song

No earthly lips may learn.

For we have both grown dim of sight
And grey of hair since then,
And sat by many a winter's fire,
But never grieved again.

It told us they were shadows

That seem'd our lives to bound,
That all the changed would yet be true,
And all the lost be found;

And I have wish'd that many a heart
Whom sorrow's waves wash o'er,
Had heard the woodland waits that sang
Beside our cottage door.

THE MAID OF THE PEOPLE.

A translation of one of BERANGER's most popular songs. DEAR maid of the people! the flowers of thy youth For the popular poet are lavishly strung.

These you owed, from your cradle, to him, for, in sooth, 'Twas to dry your first tears his first lyrics he sung. There's no lady or countess may ever entice,

With her graces, the heart long devoted to thine.
My muse and myself have arranged my device;
"Tis: the birth and the loves of the people are mine.

A boy, without fame, when my footsteps would roam
Near their tall feudal fortresses stately to see,

I look'd for no dwarfish familiar to come

And swing back the closely-barr'd portal for me. For I knew that soft feeling and poesy there

Had wither'd and died with the troubadour line,
And my citizen right should be founded elsewhere;
For the birth and the loves of the people are mine.

How weary the chambers where listlessness lies,
And yawns mid the luxury blazing about,

Where the joys, should they come there, but fade as they rise,

Like fireworks a shower has put suddenly out.

Once a week, in gay bonnet and garment of white,
To the fields, in thin shoes you go rambling so fine.
Still come; make my Sunday a day of delight;

For the birth and the loves of the people are mine.

What beauty of gentle or queenly degree

Excels my dear maid in her neatness and grace? Bears a heart of warm youth more o'erflowing than she, An eye more divine, a more exquisite face?

The people at length has a fame of its own;

I have warr'd with two courts for its rights, and opine Thou wast due to the bard that has sung its renown; For the births and the loves of the people are mine.

EARLY PREDILECTION FOR A SEAFARING LIFE.
By CRABBE.

I LOVED to walk where none had walk'd before,
About the rocks that ran along the shore;
Or far beyond the sight of men to stray,
And take my pleasure when I lost my way;
For then 'twas mine to trace the hilly heath,
And all the mossy moor that lies beneath;
Here had I fav'rite stations, where I stood
And heard the murmurs of the ocean flood,
With not a sound beside, except when flew
Aloft the lapwing, or the grey curlew,
Who with wild notes my fancied power defied,
And mock'd the dreams of solitary pride.
I loved to stop at every creek and bay
Made by the river in its winding way,
And all to memory, not by marks they bear,
But by the thoughts that were created there.
Pleasant it was to view the seagulls strive
Against the storm, or in the ocean dive,
With eager scream, or when they dropping gave
Their closing wings to sail upon the wave;
Then as the winds and waters raged around,

And breaking billows mix'd their deafening sound,

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