The reverend forms they bear

Of islands famed and fair,

On whose keen rocks, of old, heroic fleets have struck, Whose marble dells have seen

In garments pale and green

The nymphs and gods go by to bring the shepherds luck.

White are their crags, and blue

Ravines divide them through,

And like a violet shell their cliffs recede from sight;
Between their fretted capes

Fresh isles in lovely shapes

Die in the horizon pale, and lapse in liquid light.

There mines of Parian be

Hid from the sun's clear eyes,

And waiting still the lamp, the hammer, and the axe:
And he who, pensive sees

These nobler Cyclades,

Forgets the ills of life, and nothing earthly lacks.

But many an one, in vain,

Puts out across the main,

And thinks to leap on land and tread that magic shore;

He comes, for all his toil,

No nearer to their soil.

The isles are floating on, a furlong still before.

The poet sits and smiles,

He knows the golden isles,

He never hopes to win their cliffs, their marble mines, Reefs where their green sea raves,

The coldness of their caves,

The felspars full of light, their rosy corallines.

All these he oft has sought,
Led by his traveling thought,

Their glorious distance hides no inward charm from him;
He would not have their day

To common light decay,

He loves their mystery best and bids their shapes be dim.

Content to know them there,

Hung in the shining air,

He trims no foolish sail to win the hopeless coast,

His vision is enough,

To feed his soul with love,

And he who grasps too much may even himself be lost.

He knows that, if he waits,

On day the well-worn gates

Of life will ope and send him westward o'er the wave; Then will he reach ere night

The isles of his delight,

But they must float until they anchor in the grave.

On Viol and Flute.

OSSE, PHILIP HENRY, an English naturalist; born at Worcester, April 6, 1810; died at Torquay, August 23, 1888. When seventeen years old he went to Newfoundland, and employed his leisure in collecting insects, and making colored drawings of them. After eight years in Newfoundland, he spent three years in Canada, studying zoology and entomology. Thence he went to Alabama. In 1839 he returned to England, and the following year published The Canadian Naturalist. A sojourn of eighteen months in Jamaica led to his producing The Birds of Jamaica and A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica. Among his other works are A Naturalist's Ramble on the Devonshire Coast; Tenby: a Seaside Holiday (1856); Omphalos, an Attempt to Unite the Gordian Knot (1857); Evenings with the Microscope (1859); Actinologia Britannica, a History of the British Sea Anemones and Corals (1860); The

Romance of Natural History, two series (1860-62); Land and Sea, Marine Geology (1865); Sacred Streams: Ancient and Modern History of the Rivers of the Bible; Wonders of the Great Deep, and The Prehensile Armature of the Papilionide (1885).

A MYSTERIOUS SOUND.

In the forests of Lower Canada and the New England States I have often heard in Spring a mysterious sound, of which to this day I know not the author. Soon after night sets in, a metallic sound is heard from the most sombre forest swamps, where the spruce and the hemlock give a peculiar density to the woods known as the "black growth." The sound comes up clear and regular, like the measured tinkle of a cow-bell, or the action of a file upon a saw. It goes on, with intervals of interruption, throughout the hours of darkness. People attribute it to a bird, which they call the "Whetsaw; but nobody pretends to have seen it, so that this can only be considered conjecture, though a highly probable one. The monotony and pertinacity of this note had a strange charm for me, increased doubtless by the mystery that hung over it. Night after night it would be heard in the same spot, invariably the most sombre and gloomy recesses of the black-timbered woods. I occasionally watched for it, resorting to the woods before sunset, and waiting till darkness; but, strange to say, it refused to perform under such conditions. The shy and recluse bird - if bird it is. was doubtless aware of the intrusion, and on its guard. Once I heard it under peculiarly wild circumstances. I was riding late at night, and just at midnight came to a very lonely part of the road, where the black forest rose on each side. Everything was profoundly still, and the measured tramp of my horse's feet on the frozen road was felt as a relief to the deep and oppressive silence; when suddenly, from the sombre woods, rose the clear metallic tinkle of the whetsaw. The sound, all unexpected as it was, was very striking, and though it was bitterly cold, I drew

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up for some time to listen to it. In the darkness and silence of the hour, that regularly measured sound, proceeding too from so gloomy a spot, had an effect on my mind solemn and unearthly, yet not unmingled with pleasure. The Romance of Natural History.

6

OTTSCHALL, RUDOLPH VON, a German dramatist, poet and novelist; born at Breslau, Prussia, September 30, 1823. His poems display a rich imagination and he has been a fertile writer of both comedy and tragedy. In 1842 a second edition of Lieder der Gegenwart (Songs of the Present Time) appeared. Madonna and Magdalene (1843); Die Gottinn (The Goddess) 1852; and a drama called Lambertine de Mericourt (1851) added greatly to their author's fame. He also wrote other plays and some novels, as The Heritage of Blood (1882); The Paper Princess (1883), etc.

What is known in Germany as die waldbusse -" the forest fine "—is the penalty imposed for gathering wood in the forests without authority. It is the subject of one of Gottschall's popular poems.

"The young birch-wood down in the vale,
Its branches white and trim;

They glimmer as the moonbeams do
When the moon is down and dim.

"This tent of oaks, so grand and old,
Their arms outstretching far;
A world of song is cradled here,
The thousand-voiced choir.

"But ours alone are the sweet gales;

The violets on the ground;

Glad songs of birds, which from the breasts

Of thickest deep resound.

"I took but what the tempest's breath

For beggars scattered wide

A charity from tree and shrub,
Their overgrowths provide."

The keeper looked her in the face,
So sweet, so angel-pure;
Then, following duty, slowly wrote
Her name as Trespass-Doer."

"Forbidden gatherings have you there
From out the forest-ward;

And, did I not wink at the offence,
It would with you go hard.

"And, though these eyes of mine do wink, Forbidden gatherings yet

They gather up, which suddenly

My heart on fire have set.

"Go, go, poor maid, unfearing home,

Free pardon I impart;

Here from the book I take your name,

And write it in my heart!"