A SONG.

A widow bird sate mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,
And little motion in the air,
Except the mill-wheel's sound.

TO SLEEP.

SHELLEY.

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;
By turns have all been thought of; yet I lie
Sleepless and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:

Without thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier betwixt day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
WORDSWORTH.

ADONIS SLEEPING.

In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth
Of fondest beauty. Sideway his face reposed
On one white arm, and tenderly unclosed,
By tenderest passion a faint damask mouth
To slumbery pout; just as the coming south
Disparts a dew-lipp'd rose. Above his head
Four lily stalks did their white honours wed
To make a coronal; and round him grew
All tendrils green of every form and hue,
Together intertwined and trammell'd fresh :
The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh,
Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine
Of velvet leaves, and bugle-blooms divine.

KEATS.

WAITING AND WATCHING.

All the long summer did she live in hope
Of tidings from the war and as at eve,
She with her mother at the cottage door
Sat in the sunshine, if a traveller

Appear'd at distance coming o'er the brow,
Her eye was on him, and it might be seen

By the flush'd cheek what thoughts were in her heart,
And by the deadly paleness which ensued,
How her heart died within her.

RUINS.

I do love these ancient ruins:

We never tread upon them, but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history:
And questionless, here in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some lie interr'd

SOUTHEY.

Loved the church so well, and gave so largely to't, They thought it should have canopied their bones Till doomsday-but all things have their end. WEBSTER.

MUSIC.

I pant for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower,
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, O more,-I am thirsting yet,

It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart, to stifle it;

The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.

WOMAN'S TEARS.

Hide thy tears

SHELLEY.

I do not bid thee not to shed them-'twere
Easier to stop Euphrates at its source

Than one tear of a true and tender heart—
But let me not behold them: they unman me.

BYRON.

THE STORY OF A VIGIL.

By MARIE J. EWEN.

In the darken'd chamber, so very silent, very lonely,

I had watch'd for near an hour, until evening shadows fell; And she lay, asleep I thought her, and I was with her only,

She so young, and death so near her! and I loved her 66 more than well."

I loved her with the depth and with the power of poet natures,

For she alone could understand me-she of all my friends alone;

Tearfully I gazed upon her beauty's silent statue features, As she lay in her pale repose like an angel carved in stone. And I whisper'd, "Oh, my friend! all the wealth and all the sweetness

Of my soul I pour'd upon you, and its altar light is moving;

And my spirit will be left with a sense of incompleteness
After
you have departed from the circle of its loving."

She murmur'd:-"That is like you, with your far too ardent spirit,

And your power of much adoring, the which I dare not over-praise;

For I too a portion of the same lonely gift inherit,

And much sorrow hath it wrought me in the morning of my days.

In the morning of my days, for my life is past its morning, I am young, but ere the time the shades of night are steal

ing on;

But my soul is now at rest, for I see the distant dawning, The rising of diviner hopes, and the coming of the sun.

The glad coming of the sun through the sepulchre's dim portal,

Round the setting of my earthly hopes those fairer splendours shine;

On the wreck of fleeting joys I have clasp'd a joy immortal, The faith that trusted to the human I have placed on the

Divine.

VOL. VI.

D

84

As you read the other evening the lay of that lone maiden 'I have lived, I have loved!' how I wept amid the strain; 'I have lived, I have loved!' and my soul was so griefladen,

I could not answer to your questions for the smartness of the pain.

A dream of my former life, as you read the strain, came o'er me.

The lamp within, it hath been said, burns clearest towards

the last;

And in vivid strange distinctness the long-lost rose before

me,

And I lived in all the sweetness and the anguish of the past.

My soul was ever, oh, my friend, of the joyous and the loving,

In its prodigal profusion like a fountain gushing free;
And I loved and I trusted, those around me unreproving,
And my childhood's stream of life was as a smooth and sun-
lit sea.

So I grew up in that sunlight, very happy, unbelieving
That the gift of genius' doom'd me to be lonely 'mid the

·

throng;

But that knowledge came full early, then was joy amid my grieving,

And through the silent sorrow I heard the triumph of the

song.

And I turn'd to those around me, and I pour'd my spirit o'er them.

There was that in my rejoicing which they could not understand;

I was loved, but not enough beloved,' and I felt, I stood

before them,

As the gleam of a distant star, or the light on far-off

strand.

Then there enter'd one among them: I listen'd to his

praises,

And I thought I saw the haven through the darkness of the

night;

It was nothing but the homage which beauty ever raises,
I mistook a wand'ring meteor for the watch-fire's steady

light.

Oh, the glad birds in the forest! Oh, that azure summer

morning!

Oh, the happy face of nature! Oh, the love that loved in

vain!

'Twere better to have braved it down from heights of silent scorning;

But my heart, for all its wrongings, was untutor❜d in disdain."

Then she clasp'd my hand in hers, and she falter'd in her

story,

But she was calm, and only weary from speaking over

much;

For a smile was on her lips, and there shone a kind of glory Round her hair and brow and lovely eyes, or I fancied it as such.

Then she whisper'd, "Let it pass! I will hasten to the ending,

And I think, my friend, that you too know what remaineth unconfest ;

Strange that all my chequer'd life, with the present truly blending,

Should but form this silent harmony, this blessedness of

rest.

For my soul is now at peace. All the trouble of my spirit
Was but the consecrated means in its guidance to the right;
And if I have much suffer'd, 'twas according to my merit.
I trust the good in all, believing where I cannot see for
the dazzle of the light.

And I find that all my wasted faith is better for the moving,
I flung the broken reed aside, and I grasp'd the hope

divine;

I met you-and your sympathy, your gentleness of loving, Fill'd with overflowing sweetness all this fainting soul of mine.

So like me, yet unlike me! For you were ever lonely, You never sought society, for your studies were your friends;

So all your true affection was devoted to me only,

For the books were harmless rivals-besides they answer'd to our ends.