The maid that kept her mother's kine, She sang her song, she kept her kine, Rode through the Monday morn ; His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring, His belted jewels shine! O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! Year after year, where Andrew came, Comes evening down the glade, Her misty hair is faint and fair, The sorrows of thy line! I lay my hand upon the stile, Yet, stranger! here, from year to year, O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! Step out three steps, where Andrew stood: 'Tis not the burn I hear! She makes her immemorial moan, She keeps her shadowy kine; O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! THOMAS BURBIDGE. EVENTIDE. COMES Something down with eventide, Upon the river's rippling face, Broke up in many a shallow place; By chance my eye fell on the stream; This knew I in that hour. For then my heart, so full of strife, I and the river, we were one: The shade beneath the bank, I felt it cool; the setting sun Into my spirit sank. A rushing thing in power serene I felt of having ever been Was it a moment or an hour? ROSE TERRY COOKE. [U. S. A.] THE ICONOCLAST. A THOUSAND years shall come and go, His tragic drama still shall play. Ruled by some fond ideal's power, In worship vain, and useless prayer. Ah! where are they who rose in might, Who fired the temple and the shrine, And hurled, through earth's chaotic night, The helpless gods it deemed divine? Cease, longing soul, thy vain desire! What idol, in its stainless prime, But falls, untouched of axe or fire, Before the steady eyes of Time? ANNE C. (LYNCH) BOTTA. 259 So the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses, Evil and thankless the desert it blesses, Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses, Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses? What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweetest is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling. Almost the day of thy giving is over; Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover, Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover. What shall thy longing avail in the grave? Give as the heart gives whose fetters are breaking, Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking. Soon, heaven's river thy soul-fever slaking, Thou shalt know God and the gift that he gave. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. [U. s. A., 1791-1865.] INDIAN NAMES. YE say they all have passed away, 'Tis where Ontario's billow Where strong Niagara's thunders wake Rich tribute from the West, Ye say their cone-like cabins, That clustered o'er the vale, But their memory liveth on your hills, Old Massachusetts wears it And broad Ohio bears it Amid his young renown; Where her quiet foliage waves; Wachusett hides its lingering voice Your mountains build their monument, Ye call these red-browed brethren Crushed like the noteless worm amid Ye drive them from their fathers' lands, But can ye from the court of Heaven Exclude their last appeal? Ye see their unresisting tribes, Think ye the Eternal Ear is deaf? WILLIAM H. FURNESS. [U. S. A.] ETERNAL LIGHT. SLOWLY, by God's hand unfurled, Living stars to view be brought Holy Truth, Eternal Right, JAMES T. FIELDS. [U. s. A.] WORDSWORTH. THE grass hung wet on Rydal banks, The golden day with pearls adorning, When side by side with him we walked To meet midway the summer morning. The west-wind took a softer breath, The sun himself seemed brighter shining, BAYARD TAYLOR. [U. S. A.] THE MOUNTAINS. (From "THE MASQUE OF THE GODS.") HOWE'ER the wheels of Time go round, The vapors and the sunbeams braid, Hath something lost of ancient awe; AN ORIENTAL IDYL. A SILVER javelin which the hills Have hurled upon the plain below, The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills, Beneath me shoots in flashing flow. I hear the never-ending laugh Of jostling waves that come and go, And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff The sherbet cooled in mountain snow. The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars |