Would that I might with freedom be
A seer into your hidden truth,

Joining your firm fraternity,

To drink with you perpetual youth!

Christopher Pearse Cranch: born, 1813.

An American poet. Mr. Cranch was originally a Unitarian minister, but since 1842 he has gained high reputation as a landscape painter in the United States.

THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

WHAT hidest thou in thy treasure caves and cells,
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious Main :
-Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-coloured shells,
Bright things which gleam unrecked of, and in vain.
-Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy Sea!

We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the Depths have more! What wealth untold
Far down, and shining through their stillness lies!
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,
Won from ten thousand royal Argosies.1

-Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main !
Earth claims not these again!

Yet more, the Depths have more! Thy waves have roll’d
Above the cities of a world gone by!

Sand hath filled up the palaces of old,
Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry!
-Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play-
Man yields them to decay!

Yet more! the Billows and the Depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle-thunders will not break their rest:
-Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave-
Give back the true and brave!

1 Argosies—treasure-ships, richly-laden 'merchant-men.'

Give back the lost and lovely! those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long,
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown,—
But all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down,
Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head,
O'er youth's bright locks and beauty's flowery crown;
-Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the Dead!
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee-
Restore the Dead, thou Sea!

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: 1793-1835.

(See page 42.)

THE NOONDAY DREAM

OF A SCOTCH EMIGRANT IN AFRICA.

'TWAS noontide; and breathless beneath the hot ray,
The far-winding vales of the wilderness lay;

By the Koonap's lone brink, with the cool shadow o'er me,
I slept and a dream spread its visions before me.
Methought, among scenes which I loved when a boy,
I was walking again with fresh feelings of joy ;

For my soul, like the landscape, seem'd soften'd and
chang'd

From what it was once-when in childhood I rang'd
Through Cheviot's valleys, to pluck the bright flowers,
Or chase, with young rapture, the birds through the
bowers,

On my dreaming ear waters were murmuring still,

But the wild foreign river had shrunk to a rill,

And Kaha's dark mountains had melted away,

And the brown thorny desert, where antelopes stray,

Had become a sweet glen, where the young lambs were

racing,

And yellow-haired children the butterflies chasing ;

And the meadows were gemm'd with the primrose and

gowan,1

And the ferny braes 2 fring'd with the hazel and rowan ;3
The foxglove look'd out from the osiers 4 dank,5

And the wild thyme and violet breath'd from the bank :
And green fairy nooks 'mid the landscape were seen,
Half hid by the gray rocks that high o'er them lean,
Where the light birch above, its loose tresses was waving:
And the willow below, in the blue stream was laving
Its silvery garlands of soft downy buds :

And the throstle sang blithe to his mate in the woods;
And the brood of the wild-duck plashed over the pool,
New fledged from their nest among well-cresses cool;
And trouts from the limpid stream lightly were springing,
And larks in the fleckered sky cheerily singing;
And down in the copsewood the cushat was cooing;
And o'er the brown moorland the huntsman hallooing;
The gray-plaided shepherd piped high on the fell;8
And the milk-maiden sang as she sat on the well;
With the lowing of herds from the broom-blossom'd lea; "
The cuckoo's soft note from the old beechen-tree;
The waving of woods in the health-breathing gale;
The dash of the mill-wheel afar down the dale ;-
All these were around me and with them there came
Sweet voices that called me aloud by my name,
And looks of affection from innocent eyes,
And light-hearted laughter, and shrill joyous cries :
And I saw the mild features of all that were there,
Unalter'd by years, and unclouded by care!

Thomas Pringle: 1788-1834.

Pringle was a native of Roxburghshire. He was one of the earliest contributors to Blackwood's Magazine. In his thirtysecond year he went with his parents and brothers to the Cape of Good Hope, where they established a little settlement called Glen Lynden. Returning to England he resumed his literary labours. His last work was entitled African Sketches.

1 gowan-a kind of daisy.
3 rowan-the mountain-ash.
5 dank-moist.

7 cushat-wood-pigeon.

2 braes-hill-sides.

4 osiers-willow saplings. 6 throstle-thrush.

8 fell-hill.

lea-pasture-land.

DESCRIPTION OF AUBURN.

(From "The Deserted Village.")

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain ;
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed :
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth when every sport could please,
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round,
And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired:
The dancing pair that simply sought renown
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong look of love,

The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please.

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ;

There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.

Oliver Goldsmith: 1728-1774.

He

Goldsmith was born at Ferney, Co. Longford, Ireland. took his degree at Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh. For two years more he was on the Continent, the second being spent in desultory wanderings. Finally Goldsmith came to London, where he passed the remainder of his very unsettled life. His chief poems are The Traveller, and The Deserted Village, by which he is remembered as one of the most graceful and tender of English poets. His best prose work is The Vicar of Wakefield.

THE SHEPHERD'S INVITATION.

COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.1

There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle 2

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

1 madrigals-concerted or part-music for singing. 2 kirtle-a short dress, a skirt.