Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are

strong

At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song,— In doors and out, summer and winter,--Mirth.

FABLE.

Leigh Hunt.

HE mountain and the squirrel

TH

Had a quarrel ;

And the former called the latter "Little Prig."
Bun replied,

"You are doubtless very big ;

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together,

To make up a year and a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,

You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel-track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put ;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut."

R. W. Emerson.

WHAT

THE MICROCOSM.

THE MICROCOSM.

WHAT forests tall of tiniest moss
Clothe every little stone!

What pigmy oaks their foliage toss

O'er pigmy valleys lone!

With shade o'er shade, from ledge to ledge,
Ambitious of the sky,

They feather o'er the steepest edge

Of mountains mushroom high.

O God of marvels! who can tell
What myriad living things

On these gray stones unseen may dwell;
What nations, with their kings!

I feel no shock, I hear no groan,
While fate perchance o'erwhelms
Empires on this subverted stone-
A hundred ruin'd realms!

Lo! in that dot, some mite, like me,
Impell'd by woe or whim,

May crawl some atom-cliffs to see-
A tiny world to him!

Lo! while he pauses and admires
The works of nature's might,
Spurn'd by my foot, his world expires,
And all to him is night!

O God of terrors! what are we ?

Poor insects, spark'd with thought! Thy whisper, Lord, a word from thee Could smite us into nought!

II

161

But shouldst thou wreck our father-land,

And mix it with the deep,

Safe in the hollow of thine hand

Thy little ones would sleep.

COME

COME DOWN, O MAID.

OME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height;

What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),

In height and cold, the splendor of the hills?

COME DOWN, O MAID.

163

But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air;

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I

Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Tennyson.

SPLENDORS OF MORNING.

PLENDORS of morning the billow-crests bright.

SPLE

en,

Lighting and luring them on to the land,—
Far away waves where the wan vessels whiten,
Blue rollers breaking in surf where we stand.
Curved like the necks of a legion of horses,
Each with his froth-gilded mane flowing free,
Hither they speed in perpetual courses,
Bearing thy riches, O beautiful sea!

Strong with the striving of yesterday's surges,
Lashed by the wanton winds leagues from the

shore,

Each, driven fast by its follower, urges

Fearlessly those that are fleeting before;
How they leap over the ridges we walk on,
Flinging us gifts from the depths of the sea,—
Silvery fish for the foam-haunting falcon,

Palm-weed and pearls for my darling and me!

Light falls her foot where the rift follows after,
Finer her hair than your feathery spray,
Sweeter her voice than your infinite laughter,-
Hist! ye wild couriers, list to my lay!

Deep in the chambers of grottos auroral

Morn laves her jewels and bends her bright knee : Thence to my dear one your amber and coral

Bring for her dowry, O beautiful sea!

E. C. Stedman.