-Thus sung they in the English boat

A holy and a cheerful note:

And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

A. MARVELL.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

OFT in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me :

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so link'd together

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

T. MOORE.

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD

WE sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The light-house, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again.

The first light swerving of the heart,

That words are powerless to express,

And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark;

The leaves of memory seemed to make

A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendour flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,—
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain, The long-lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned !
They were indeed too much akin,

The drift wood fire without that burned,

The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

LONGFELLOW.

THE WAR-SONG OF DINAS VAWR

THE mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.

We made an expedition;

We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

On Dyfed's richest valley,

Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,

To furnish our carousing.

Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;

We met them, and o'erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;

But we conquered them, and slew them.

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:

His rage surpassed all measure,

But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;

And, are our force we led off,

Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.

We there, in strife bewildering,
Spilt blood enough to swim in,
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.

LIBRARY

OF TH

UNIVE

We brought away from battle,

And much their land bemoaned them,

Two thousand head of cattle,

And the head of him who owned them:

Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,

His head was borne before us;

His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.

PEACOCK.