Hear the mellow wedding bells

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune!

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune!

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour

Now, now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells,

And the people-ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone!

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human--
They are Ghouls!

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells

With the pæan of the bells-
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme

To the pean of the bells-
Of the bells!
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,
To the tolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

EDGAR A. POE.

WANTON droll, whose harmless play Beguiles the rustic's closing day, When drawn the evening fire about, Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout, And child upon his three-foot stool, Waiting till his supper cool;

Or, with unfettered fancy, fly
Through airy heights of poesy,
Pausing, smiles with altered air,
To see thee climb his elbow-chair,
Or, struggling on the mat below,
Hold warfare with his slippered toe.

rose,

As bright the blazing fagot glows-
Who, bending to the friendly light,
Plies her task with busy sleight;
Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces,
Thus circled round with merry faces.

Backward coiled, and crouching low, With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe, The housewife's spindle whirling round, Or thread, or straw, that on the ground Its shadow throws, by urchin sly Held out to lure thy roving eye; Then, onward stealing, fiercely spring Upon the futile, faithless thing. Now wheeling round, with bootless skill, Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still, As oft beyond thy curving side

Its jetty tip is seen to glide;

Till, from thy centre starting fair,

Thou sidelong rear'st, with rump in air,
Erected stiff, and gait awry,
Like madam in her tantrums high:
Though ne'er a madam of them all,
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall,
More varied trick and whim displays,
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze.

And oft, beneath some urchin's hand, With modest pride, thou tak'st thy stand, While many a stroke of fondness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly sings thy busy pur, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose, Like prickles of an early rose;

While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.

But not alone by cottage-fire Do rustics rude thy feats admire : The learned sage, whose thoughts explore The widest range of human lore,

Who in the still, but cheerless shade
Of home unsocial, spends her age,
And rarely turns a lettered page;
Upon her hearth for thee lets fall
The rounded cork, or paper ball,
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch
The ends of ravelled skein to catch,
But lets thee have thy wayward will,
Perplexing oft her sober skill.

Whence hast thou, then, thou witless Puss,
The magic power to charm us thus?
Is it, that in thy glaring eye
And rapid movements we descry,
While we at ease, secure from ill,
The chimney-corner snugly fill,
A lion darting on the prey,
A tiger at his ruthless play?
Or is it, that in thee we trace,
With all thy varied wanton grace,
An emblem viewed with kindred eye,
Of tricksy, restless infancy?

Ah! many a lightly sportive child,
Who hath, like thee, our wits beguiled,
To dull and sober manhood grown,
With strange recoil our hearts disown.
Even so, poor Kit! must thou endure,
When thou becom'st a cat demure,
Full many a cuff and angry word,
Chid roughly from the tempting board.
And yet, for that thou hast, I ween,
So oft our favoured playmate been,
Soft be the change which thou shalt prove,
When time hath spoiled thee of our love;
Still be thou deemed, by housewife fat,
A comely, careful, mousing cat,
Whose dish is, for the public good,
Replenished oft with savoury food.

Nor, when thy span of life is past, Be thou to pond or dunghill cast; But, gently borne on good man's spade, Beneath the decent sod be laid, And children show, with glistening eyes, The place where poor old Pussy lies.

JOANNA BAILLIE

128

-ever

that glance

askance !

66

Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon

through.

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the

pique right,

Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,

We'll remember at Aix"-for one heard the quick wheese

Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and staggering knees,

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

the bit,

drew near

Past Loos and past Tongres, no cloud in

the sky:

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our foot broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;

dawned clear;

At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;

At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;

And from Mechlin church-steeple we heard the half-chime,

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

without peer;

his track;

noise, bad or good,