There, at morn's rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve, that round the earth

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls The shapes of polar flame1 to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High tow'rds the starlit sky

Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun,
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud,
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.
On thine unaltering blaze,

The half-wreck'd mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And therefore bards of old,

Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.
William Cullen Bryant: 1794–1878.

(See page 66.)

STARS.

THEY glide upon their endless way,
For ever calm, for ever bright;

No blind hurry, no delay,

Mark the Daughters of the Night:

They follow in the track of Day,
In divine delight.

1 shapes of polar flame-the aurora borealis.

Shine on, sweet orbèd Souls for aye,
For ever calm, for ever bright,

We ask not whither lies your way,

Nor whence ye came, nor what your light.
Be still a dream throughout the day,
A blessing through the night.

Bryan Waller Procter: 1790-1874.
(See page 78.)

ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic1 red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion" o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet birds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh hear!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

1 hectic-feverish.

2 her clarion-her summons. A clarion is a horn of clear and ringing tone,

Of some fierce Maenad,1 even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's 2 height,
The locks of the approaching storm.

Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear !

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay
Lulled by the coil 3 of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's 5 bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh hear !

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is :
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth;

1 Maenad-from a word which means mad. The Maenades were priestesses of Bacchus-thus named from their wild gestures and actions at festivals.

2 zenith-that part of the heavens vertically over our heads.

3 coil-murmur, noise. (See also p. 62).

4 pumice isle-island of volcanic scoriæ.

5 Baiae-a once-famous city of Campania, now destroyed by earthquakes.

And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth,
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley: 1792-1822.

Shelley was the son of a Sussex baronet. Want of sympathy, completed by injustice, particularly at school and college, bred in him an intolerance of control and a scorn of the world's opinions and prejudices; and these traits characterized the whole of his after-life. Nevertheless, he devoted his best energies to deeds and dreams of philanthropy, and his works prove that, however romantic and impracticable his views, he had an earnest desire to promote the good of mankind. His verse is strong and wild, yet full of music: his lyrics rank as the finest in the English language. Shelley met his death by drowning in the Bay of Spezia, North Italy.

WIND AND SEA.

THE Sea is a jovial comrade,
He laughs wherever he goes;

His merriment shines in the dimpling lines
That wrinkle his hale repose;

He lays himself down at the feet of the Sun,
And shakes all over with glee,

And the broad-back'd billows fall faint on the shore,
In the mirth of the mighty Sea!

But the Wind is sad and restless,

And cursed with an inward pain;

You may hark as you will, by valley or hill,
But you hear him still complain.

He wails on the barren mountain,

And shrieks on the wintry sea;

He sobs in the cedar, and moans in the pine,
And shudders all over the aspen tree.

Welcome are both their voices,

And I know not which is best,

The laughter that slips from the Ocean's lips,
Or the comfortless Wind's unrest.

There's a pang in all rejoicing,

A joy in the heart of pain,

And the Wind that saddens, the Sea that gladdens, Are singing the self-same strain !

Bayard Taylor: 1825-1878.

An American poet. In his early years, Taylor was apprenticed to a printer, but he afterwards adopted literature as a profession, and also became a great traveller. He is the author of several novels, two or three volumes of poetry, and many books of travel. In 1862, he was appointed Secretary to the American legation at the court of St. Petersburg.

THE FIRST SWALLOW.

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,

The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,

The oaks are budding, and beneath,
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

The welcome guest of settled Spring,
The swallow, too, is come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she pass'd.

Come, Summer visitant, attach

To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch,

At the grey dawn of day.

Charlotte Smith: 1749-1806.

The life of Mrs. Charlotte Smith was saddened by many trials and domestic sorrows. From 1787, to the time of her death, she devoted herself to literary labours for the benefit of her children. She is principally remembered as the author of the Old Manor-house, and other novels.