While every word dropt on my ear

So soft (and yet it seemed to thrill), So sweet that 't was a heaven to hear, And e'en thy pause had music still.

And O, how like a fairy dream

To gaze in silence on the tide, While soft and warm the sunny gleam Slept on the glassy surface wide!

And many a thought of fancy bred,
Wild, soothing, tender, undefined,
Played lightly round the heart, and shed
Delicious languor o'er the mind.

So hours like moments winged their flight,
Till now the boatmen on the shore,
Impatient of the waning light,

Recalled us by the dashing oar.

Well, Anna, many days like this

I cannot, must not hope to share; For I have found an hour of bliss Still followed by an age of care.

Yet oft when memory intervenes

But you, dear maid, be happy still,
Nor e'er regret, midst fairer scenes,
The day we passed on Greenwich Hill.

William Gifford.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

COME

YOME to these peaceful seats, and think no more
Of cold, of midnight watchings, or the roar
Of Ocean tossing on his restless bed!

Come to these peaceful seats, ye who have bled
For honor, who have traversed the great flood,
Or on the battle's front with stern eye stood,
When rolled its thunder, and the billows red
Oft closed, with sudden flashings, o'er the dead.
O, heavy are the sorrows that beset

hard to forget
Old age! and hard it is,
The sunshine of our youth, our manhood's pride!
But here, O aged men! ye may abide
Secure, and see the last light on the wave

Of Time, which wafts you silent to your grave;
Like the calm evening ray, that smiles serene
Upon the tranquil Thames, and cheers the sinking scene.
William Lisle Bowles.

Greta, the River.

TO THE RIVER GRETA, NEAR KESWICK.

RETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones

G

Or, whirling with reiterated shock,

Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans:
But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named

The mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones,
Seats of glad instinct and love's carolling,
The concert, for the happy, then may vie
With liveliest peals of birthday harmony;
To a grieved heart the notes are benisons.

William Wordsworth.

Grisedale.

GRISEDALE BECK.

MY gentle stream, with constant smile and bright,

I miss thy loving looks and winding ways,
Thy murmurous accents glad of yesternight,
Sweet as from earnest lips the words of praise;
Where art thou, friend? I hear the impetuous noise
Of hurried passion, the unmeaning roar

Of some wild torrent: it is not thy voice!
Nor doth thy wave respect its wonted shore,
But arrowy-straight in frantic fury springs.
I grieve that I e'er knew thee: happy heart
And noble, that with either moods hath part:
Mine hath not; but with timid love it clings
Conscious of weakness: and it doth so lean
To some boy-friends grown hard and headstrong men.

James Payn.

Haddon Hall.

HADDON HALL, DERBYSHIRE, JULY, 1836.

NOT fond displays of cost, nor pampered train

Of idle menials, me so much delight,

Nor mirrored halls, nor roofs with gilding bright,
Nor all the foolery of the rich and vain,
As these time-honored walls, crowning the plain
With their gray battlements; within bedight
With ancient trophies of baronial might,

And figures dim, inwoven in the grain

Of dusky tapestry. I love to muse

In present peace, on days of pomp and strife;

The daily struggles of our human life,

Seen through Time's veil, their selfish coloring lose,
As here the glaring beams of outer day
Through ivy-shadowed oriels softened play.

Henry Alford.

HADDON HALL.

R

UTLAND, Vernon, whatsoe'er
The boasted rank, the lordly name,
All have melted into air,

Ceased like an extinguished flame.

Solemn in the summer noon,
Memory-ridden, hope-bereft,

Ghost-like 'neath the midnight moon
By some trailing shadow cleft;

Vacant chamber of the dead,

Through whose gloom fierce passions swept; Mouldering couch whereon, 't is said, The majesty of England slept;

Hall of wassail, which has rung

To the unquestioned baron's jest; Dim old chapel, where were hung

Offerings of the o'erfraught breast;

Moss-clad terrace, strangely still,

Broken shaft, and crumbling frieze, Still as lips that used to fill

With bugle-blasts the morning breeze!

Careless river, gliding under,
Ever gliding, lapsing on,

With no sense of awe or wonder
At the ages which have gone;

Thou in thy unconscious flow

Know'st not sorrows which destroy, Yet this truth thou dost not know,· Sorrows give a zest to joy.

Every record of the past

Makes the present more intense, Love's old temple overcast

Wakes to love the living sense.