Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere ;1

To those, who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
Some harshness show,

All vain asperities 2 I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.---

And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they;

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;

So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they;

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.

Robert Southey: 1774-1843.

Southey was born at Bristol, educated at Westminster School and Balliol College, Oxford. He began to write poetry at a very early age, and his devotion to literature soon became apparent. There have been few such prolific authors as Southey. He spent the best part of his life in his library at Greta Hall, Keswick. In 1807 a Government pension was settled upon him, and in 1813 he accepted the office of Poet-laureate. Southey's chief works are Thalaba, The Curse of Kehama, and Roderick, the last of the Goths.

1 austere-rough, stern. 2 asperitics-harshnesses.

WOODLAND MEMORIES.

(From Prelude to Voices of the Night.)

PLEASANT it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amidst some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or, where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
With one continuous sound ;—

A slumberous sound,—a sound that brings
The feelings of a dream,-

As of innumerable wings,

As, when a bell no longer swings,
Faint the hollow murmur rings

O'er meadow, lake, and stream.

And dreams of that which cannot die,
Bright visions, came to me,

As lapped in thought I used to lie,
And gaze into the summer sky,
Where the sailing clouds went by,

Like ships upon the sea;

Dreams that the soul of youth engage
Ere Fancy has been quelled;
Old legends of the monkish page,

Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime1 of age,
And chronicles of Eld.2

And, loving still these quaint old themes,3
Even in the city's throng

I feel the freshness of the streams,
That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams,
Water the green land of dreams,

The holy land of song.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

born, 1807.

(See page 14.)

FIELDS BY WATERFALLS.

WHEN our downcast looks be smileless,
Under others' wrongs and slightings,
When our daily deeds be guileless,
And do meet unkind requitings,
You can inake us some amends

For wrongs of foes and slights of friends ;-
O flowery-gladed, timber-shaded
Fields by flowing waterfalls!

Here be softest_airs a-blowing

Through the boughs, with singing thrushes, Up above the streams, a-flowing Under willows, on by rushes.

Here below the bright-sunn'd sky

The dew-bespangled flowers do dry,
In woody-sided, stream-divided

Fields by flowing waterfalls.

Waters, with their giddy rollings,-
Breezes, with their playsome wooings,-
Here do heal, in soft consolings,

Hearts a-wrung with man's wrong doings.

1 rime of age-the frost or greyness of age. 2 of Eld-of olden time.

3 quaint old themes--curious old subjects of thought.

I

rong and free, strong and free ; ood-gates are open, away to the sea. ree and strong, free and strong, ing my streams as I hurry along e golden sands and the leaping bar, he taintless tide that awaits me afar, lose myself in the infinite main,

soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. ndefiled, for the undefiled;

by me, bathe in me, mother and child!

Charles Kingsley: 1819-1875.

(See page 32.)

THE STREAMLET.

SAW a little streamlet flow
Along a peaceful vale,

thread of silver, soft and slow,
It wandered down the dale;
1st to do good it seemed to move,
Directed by the hand of love.

he valley smiled in living green ; A tree, which near it gave

rom noontide heat a friendly screen, Drank from its limpid1 wave,

he swallow brushed it with her wing,
And followed its meandering.2

'ut not alone to plant and bird
That little stream was known,
ts gentle murmur far was heard-
A friend's familiar tone!

t glided by the cotter's door,3

t blessed the labour of the poor.

id-clear.

dering-winding about: from Meander, the name in Phrygia, noted for its tortuous course.

-cottager.