Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given

For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dream'd of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told, why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky :

When o'er the green undeluged earth
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's gray fathers forth,
To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang,
On earth deliver'd from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam :
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!
The earth to thee its incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshen'd fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle, cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town!
Or mirror'd in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.
For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.

[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.]

"In the summer of the year 1797, the author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in "Purchas's Pilgrimage:"-" Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall." The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking, he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and, taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and, on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter."-Author's Notice.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round :
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick plaints were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :

Amid whose swift half-intermitted Burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail;
And, 'mid these dancing rocks, at once and ever,
It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And, 'mid this tumult, Kubla heard from far,
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel, with a dulcimer,
In a vision once I saw ;

It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That, with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread :
For he on honey-due hath fed,

And drank the milk of Paradise.

FOREST CHANGES.

[DERWENT CONWAY.]

SPRING is thy youth, and winter is thy age,
In all thy changes, wonderful or fair:

Spring doth exhaust her sweets, winter his rage,
On thee, thou world of trees that spreadest there.
How sweet when young, how venerable, old!
May breathes on thee, and, lo! thy buds unfold
Their virgin blossoms to the love-sick air.
And summer crowns thee, when no wandering ray
Can through thy leafy labyrinth find its way;
While all day long, upon thy solitudes,
His "chut, chut, chut," the nightingale intrudes.
Now autumn sighs, and summer green turns pale;
And, by and by, thy painted leaves hang frail,
While in thy depths Decay's small voice is heard,
As sever'd leaves drop on the rustling sward.
Last, winter comes, to lay thy glories bare;
Yet thy unbending trunks stand proudly there,—
Huge, gray, and gnarl'd, with their fantastic arms,
Or white, and sparkling in a world of charms.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter, rule thee ever: Thy vesture changeth,-but thy beauty never.

THE RUINS OF TIME.

[BARRY CORNWALL.]

I.

"TIME in his awful course rolls on for ever:
Marble and brass and gold, temples and towers,
Fall down before his waves, -the unsparing Hours;
And on the dark deep river

(Wash'd like an atom down) goes man, the god!

Pale stern philosophers and hermits holy,
Vain scholars, lovers vain, maids melancholy,
And kings, who once in purple vengeance trode.
Kingdoms and states resist not great seas fall
Back, and old Earth shrinks like a crumbling ball
Grace, honour, valour, wisdom, virtue, fame,
Weak, wise, or brave or strong,-all bend the same!

II.

;

"Now sit, and let us mark what ruins hoar
Great Time hath left upon this terrene shore,
What pillars and vast blocks of brass and stone,
With figures carved, and fill'd with speech unknown,
What plains turn'd up by inundations wild, -
What pyramids unpiled,

--

And shatter'd rocks, and horrid wrecks sublime.
Look out, while I note down each thing that Time,
(Tyrannous Time) hath left, in deep amaze-
Count on, count on-Do I not bid thee gaze?"
"I gaze, but see no marks of Time, save one,
The little dial, pointing in the sun!"

EVENING.

[REV. GEORGE CROLY.]

WHEN eve is purpling cliff and cave,
Thoughts of the heart, how soft ye flow!
Not softer on the western wave

The golden lines of sunset glow.

Then all, by chance or fate removed,
Like spirits crowd upon the eye;
The few we liked-the one we loved!
And the whole heart is memory.

And life is like a fading flower,
Its beauty dying as we gaze;
Yet as the shadows round us lower,
Heaven pours above a brighter blaze.
When morning sheds its gorgeous dye,
Our hope, our heart, to earth is given;
But dark and lonely is the eye

That turns not, at its eve, to heaven.

THE TOWN CHILD AND THE COUNTRY CHILD.

[ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.]

CHILD of the country! free as air
Art thou, and as the sunshine fair;
Born, like the lily, where the dew
Lies odorous when the day is new;

Fed 'mid the May-flowers like the bee,
Nursed to sweet music on the knee,

Lull'd in the breast to that glad tune

Which winds make 'mong the woods of June;

I sing of thee: 'tis sweet to sing

Of such a fair and gladsome thing.
Child of the town! for thee I sigh:

A gilded roof's thy golden sky,
A carpet is thy daisied sod,

A narrow street thy boundless road,

Thy rushing deer 's the clattering tramp
Of watchmen, thy best light's a lamp,
Through smoke, and not through trellis'd vines
And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines:
I sing of thee in sadness: where.
Else is wreck wrought in aught so fair?
Child of the country! thy small feet
Tread on strawberries red and sweet;
With thee I wander forth to see
The flowers which most delight the bee;
The bush o'er which the throstle sung
In April, while she nursed her young;
The den beneath the sloe-thorn, where
She bred her twins, the timorous hare;
The knoll, wrought o'er with wild bluebells,
Where brown bees build their balmy cells;
The greenwood stream, the shady pool,
Where trouts leap when the day is cool;
The shilfa's nest, that seems to be
A portion of the sheltering tree;
And other marvels, which my verse
Can find no language to rehearse.

Child of the town! for thee, alas!
Glad nature spreads nor flowers nor grass;
Birds build no nests, nor in the sun
Glad streams come singing as they run :
A maypole is thy blossom'd tree,
A beetle is thy murmuring bee;
Thy bird is caged, thy dove is where
Thy poulterer dwells, beside thy hare;
Thy fruit is pluck'd, and by the pound
Hawk'd clamorous all the city round;
No roses, twinborn on the stalk,
Perfume thee in thy evening walk;
No voice of birds-but to thee comes
The mingled din of cars and drums,
And startling cries, such as are rife
When wine and wassail waken strife.

Child of the country! on the lawn
I see thee like the bounding fawn;
Blithe as the bird which tries its wing
The first time on the winds of spring;
Bright as the sun, when from the cloud
He comes as cocks are crowing loud;