The sky, that flecked the ground of toil
With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day,
The early harvest mowing,
The sky with sun and clouds at play,
And flowers with breezes blowing.

I hear the blackbird in the corn,
The locust in the haying;

And, like the fabled hunter's horn,
Old tunes my heart is playing.

How oft that day, with fond delay,

I sought the maple's shadow,
And sang with Burns the hours away,
Forgetful of the meadow !

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead
I heard the squirrels leaping;
The good dog listened while I read,
And wagged his tail in keeping.

I watched him while in sportive mood
I read "The Twa Dogs' " story,
And half believed he understood

The poet's allegory.

Sweet day, sweet songs! - The golden hours
Grew brighter for that singing,

From brook and bird and meadow flowers
A dearer welcome bringing.

New light on home-seen Nature beamed,
New glory over Woman;
And daily life and duty seemed
No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth
Of fact and feeling better

Than all the dreams that held my youth
A still repining debtor :

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art,
The themes of sweet discoursing;
The tender idyls of the heart

In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl,
Of loving knight and lady,
When farmer boy and barefoot girl
Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things
The romance underlying ;

The joys and griefs that plume the wings
Of Fancy skyward flying.

I saw the same blithe day return,
The same sweet fall of even,

That rose on wooded Craigie-burn,
And sank on crystal Devon.

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills
The sweet-brier and the clover ;
With Ayr and Doon, my native rills,
Their wood-hymns chanting over.

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen,
I saw the Man uprising;
No longer common or unclean,
The child of God's baptizing.

With clearer eyes I saw the worth
Of life among the lowly;
The Bible at his Cotter's hearth
Had made my own more holy.

And if at times an evil strain,

To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain

Of pure and healthful feeling, It died upon the eye and ear,

No inward answer gaining; No heart had I to see or hear

The discord and the staining.

Let those who never erred forget

His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song ! I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings!

Lament who will the ribald line
Which tells his lapse from duty,
How kissed the maddening lips of wine,
Or wanton ones of beauty;

But think, while falls that shade between
The erring one and Heaven,
That he who loved like Magdalen,
Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime
Eternal echoes render, —
The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme,
And Milton's starry splendor;

But who his human heart has laid
To Nature's bosom nearer?
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid
To love a tribute dearer ?

Through all his tuneful art, how strong
The human feeling gushes!
The very moonlight of his song

Is warm with smiles and blushes!

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So "Bonny Doon" but tarry ;
Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his Highland Mary!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

BURNS.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

STOP, mortal! Here thy brother lies,
The poet of the poor.

His books were rivers, woods, and skies,
The meadow and the moor;

His teachers were the torn heart's wail,
The tyrant, and the slave,

The street, the factory, the jail,

The palace, and the grave!
Sin met thy brother everywhere!
And is thy brother blamed?
From passion, danger, doubt, and care
He no exemption claimed.

The meanest thing, earth's feeblest worm,
He feared to scorn or hate;

Bnt, honoring in a peasant's form
The equal of the great,

He blessed the steward, whose wealth makes
The poor man's little more;

Yet loathed the haughty wretch that takes From plundered labor's store.

A hand to do, a head to plan,

A heart to feel and dare,

Tell man's worst foes, here lies the man
Who drew them as they are.

BURNS.

EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

REAR high thy bleak majestic hills,
Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread,
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red;
But, ah! what poet now shall tread

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead,

That ever breathed the soothing strain ?

As green thy towering pines may grow,

As clear thy streams may speed along, As bright thy summer suns may glow, As gayly charm thy feathery throng; But now unheeded is the song,

And dull and lifeless all around, For his wild harp lies all unstrung,

And cold the hand that waked its sound.

What though thy vigorous offspring rise, -
In arts, in arms, thy sons excel;
Though beauty in thy daughters' eyes,
And health in every feature dwell;
Yet who shall now their praises tell

In strains impassioned, fond, and free,
Since he no more the song shall swell
To love and liberty and thee!

WILLIAM ROSCOE

BURNS.

THAT heaven's beloved die early,

Prophetic Pity mourns ;

But old as Truth, although in youth,

Died giant-hearted Burns.

O that I were the daisy

That sank beneath his plough!

Or, "neighbor meet," that "skylark sweet!"

Say, are they nothing now?

That mouse, our fellow mortal,"

Lives deep in Nature's heart;

Like earth and sky, it cannot die
Till earth and sky depart.

Thy Burns, child-honored Scotland!

Is many minds in one;

With thought on thought the name is fraught Of glory's peasant son.

Thy Chaucer is thy Milton,

And might have been thy Tell;

As Hampden fought, thy Sidney wrote,
And would have fought as well.

Be proud, man-childed Scotland!
Of earth's unpolished gem;
And

Bonny Doon," and "heaven aboon," For Burns hath hallowed them.

Be proud, though sin-dishonored
And grief-baptized thy child;
As rivers run, in shade and sun,
He ran his courses wild.

Grieve not though savage forests

Looked grimly on the wave,

Where dim-eyed flowers and shaded bowers Seemed living in the grave.

Grieve not, though by the torrent

Its headlong course was riven,

When o'er it came, in clouds and flame,
Niagara from heaven!

For sometimes gently flowing,

And sometimes chafed to foam,

O'er slack, and deep, by wood and steep,

He sought his heavenly home.

BURNS.

EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

His is that language of the heart

In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek;

FROM

BYRON.

"THE COURSE OF TIME."

TAKE one example to our purpose quite. A man of rank, and of capacious soul, Who riches had, and fame, beyond desire, An heir of flattery, to titles born, And reputation, and luxurious life: Yet, not content with ancestorial name, Or to be known because his fathers were, He on this height hereditary stood, And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart

To take another step. Above him seemed,
Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
Of canonized bards; and thitherward,
By nature taught, and inward melody,
In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye.

Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms

His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deemed. All passions of all men,
The wild and tame, the gentle and severe;

read;

What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see,
He saw.
And first in rambling school-boy days,
Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes,
And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks,
And maids, as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul,
With grandeur filled, and melody, and love.
Then travel came, and took him where he wished:
He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp ;
And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows;
And mused on battle-fields, where valor fought
In other days; and mused on ruins gray
With years; and drank from old and fabulous
wells,

All creeds, all seasons, time, eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man,
He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves;
Then, smiling, looked upon the wreek he made.
With terror now he froze the cowering blood,
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness;
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
So Ocean, from the plains his waves had late
To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,

plucked;

But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair

tranced;

As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And opened new fountains in the human heart.
Where Fancy halted, weary in her flight,
In other men, his fresh as morning rose,
And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at
home,

Where angels bashful looked. Others, though great,

Beneath their argument seemed struggling whiles; He, from above descending, stooped to touch The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as

though

It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self
He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks;
Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,
And with the thunder talked as friend to friend;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance seemed;
Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sung
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed.
Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters

were;

And perched it there, to see what lay beneath. The nations gazed, and wondered much and praised.

Critics before him fell in humble plight;
Confounded fell; and made debasing signs
To catch his eye; and stretched and swelled
themselves

To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words
Of admiration vast; and many too,
Many that aimed to imitate his flight,
With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made,
And gave abundant sport to after days.

Great man! the nations gazed and wondered much,

And praised; and many called his evil good.
Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness;
And kings to do him honor took delight.
Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame;
Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full,

He died, he died of what? Of wretchedness;
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank

draughts

That common millions might have quenched, then died

Of thirst, because there was no more to drink. His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoyed, Fell from his arms, abhorred; his passions died, Died, all but dreary, solitary Pride;

And all his sympathies in being died.
As some ill-guided bark, well built and tall,
Which angry tides cast out on desert shore,
And then, retiring, left it there to rot
And moulder in the winds and rains of heaven;
So he, cut from the sympathies of life,

And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge,
A wandering, weary, worn, and wretched thing,
Scorched and desolate and blasted soul,
A gloomy wilderness of dying thought,
Repined, and groaned, and withered from the
earth.

His groanings filled the land his numbers filled;
And yet he seemed ashamed to groan.

man!

Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help.

CAMP-BELL.

CHARADE.

Poor

ROBERT POLLOK.

But before I go, Tom Moore,

Here's a double health to thee!
Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate!

Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won.
Were 't the last drop in the well,
As I gasped upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell,

"T is to thee that I would drink.

With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour

Should be, Peace with thine and mine,

And a health to thee, Tom Moore.

BYRON.

A BARD'S EPITAPH.

Is there a whim-inspiréd fool,

Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near,

And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.

Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowd among,
That weekly this area throng,

O, pass not by !
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here heave a sigh.

Is there a man whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs himself life's mad career,
Wild as the wave;

Here pause, and, through the starting tear,
Survey this grave.

The poor inhabitant below

Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,

And sober flame;

But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stained his name!

Reader, attend, whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkly grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit ;
Know prudent, cautious self-control
Is wisdom's root.

BURNS