Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping

Years ago.

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"

Did he whisper? "Look forth from the flowers to the sea;

For the foam flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,

And men that love lightly may die—but we? And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,

And or ever the garden's last petals were shed, In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,

Love was dead.

Or they loved their life through, and then went whither?

And were one to the end-but what end, who knows?

Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,

As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose. Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?

What love was ever as deep as a grave? They are loveless now as the grass above them, Or the wave.

All are at one now, roses and lovers,

Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the

sea.

Not a breath of the time that has been hovers
In the air now soft with a summer to be.
Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons here-
after

Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,

When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter

We shall sleep.

Here death may deal not again for ever;

Here change may come not till all change end. From the graves they have made they shall rise up

never,

Who have left naught living to ravage and rend.

growing,

While the sun and the rain live, these shall be; Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble, Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink, Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble

The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink, Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,

As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

The Latter Rain.

THE latter rain,-it falls in anxious haste
Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare,
Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste
As if it would each root's lost strength repair;
But not a blade grows green as in the Spring;
No swelling twig puts forth its thickening leaves;
The robins only mid the harvests sing.
Pecking the grain that scatters from the sheaves;
The rain falls still,- the fruit all ripened drops,
It pierces chestnut-burr and walnut-shell;
The furrowed fields disclose the yellow crops;
Each bursting pod of talents used can tell;
And all that once received the early rain
Declare to man it was not sent in vain.

Autumn.

THE Autumn is old;

JONES VERY.

The sere leaves are flying;
He hath gathered up gold,
And now he is dying:
Old age, begin sighing!
The vintage is ripe;

The harvest is heaping;
But some that have sowed
Have no riches for reaping:
Poor wretch, fall a-weeping!

The year's in the wane;

There is nothing adorning;
The night has no eve,

And the day has no morning;
Cold winter gives warning.

The rivers run chill;

The red sun is sinking;

And I am grown old,

And life is fast shrinking;

Here's enow for sad thinking!

THOMAS HOOD.

Autumn's Sighing.

AUTUMN'S sighing,

Moaning, dying;

Clouds are flying

On like steeds; While their shadows O'er the meadows Walk like widows

Decked in weeds.

Red leaves trailing,
Fall unfailing,
Dropping, sailing,

From the wood,
That, unpliant,
Stands defiant,
Like a giant
Dropping blood.

Winds are swelling
Round our dwelling,
All day telling

Us their woe;
And at vesper
Frosts grow crisper,
As they whisper
Of the snow.

From th' unseen land
Frozen inland,
Down from Greenland
Winter glides,
Shedding lightness
Like the brightness
When moon-whiteness
Fills the tides.

Now bright Pleasure's Sparkling measures With rare treasures Overflow!

With this gladness Comes what sadness! Oh, what madness! Oh, what woe!

Even merit

May inherit
Some bare garret,
Or the ground:
Or, a worse ill,
Beg a morsel
At some door-sill,
Like a hound!

Storms are trailing;
Winds are wailing,
Howling, railing

At each door.
'Midst this trailing,
Howling, railing,
List the wailing

Of the poor!

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

The Ivy Green.

OH! a dainty plant is the Ivy green,

That creepeth o'er ruins old!

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

In his cell so lone and cold.

93

The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed,

To pleasure his dainty whim;

And the mouldering dust that years have made Is a merry meal for him.

Creeping where no life is seen,

A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he!
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,
To his friend the huge oak-tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,

And he joyously twines and hugs around
The rich mould of dead men's graves.

Creeping where no life is seen,

A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade

From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days
Shall fatten upon the past;

For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the Ivy's food at last.

Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
CHARLES DICKENS.

Grongar Hill.

SILENT nymph, with curious eye,
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man-
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale-
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse.
Now, while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,
Grongar Hill invites my song—
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head,

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his checkered sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottoes where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,

As circles on a smooth canal.
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise.
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapors intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.

Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;
And beyond, the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood:
His sides are clothed with waving wood:
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps;
So both, a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.
"Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,

Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there fall
Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered wall.
Yet Time has seen- - that lifts the low
And level lays the lofty brow-
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state.
But transient is the smile of Fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers, how they run

Through woods and meads, in shade and sun,
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay
To disperse our cares away.

Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow!
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky;
The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm -
Each gives each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges lie;
What streaks of meadow cross the eye!
A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the Future's face,
Eyed through Hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which, to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way -
The present's still a cloudy day.
Oh may I with myself agree,

And never covet what I see;
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul.
"Tis thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.

Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain turf I lie;
While the wanton Zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,

And with music fill the sky,
Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Search for Peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor.

In vain you search; she is not here!
In vain you search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with Pleasure-close allied,
Ever by each other's side;

And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

November.

JOHN DYER.

95

THE mellow year is hasting to its close;
The little birds have almost sung their last,
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast-
That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows;
The patient beauty of the scentless rose,
Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed,
Hangs a pale mourner for the summer past,
And makes a little summer where it grows,
In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine;
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define;
And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

Folding the Flocks.

SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up; for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops, how they kiss
Every little flower that is:
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a string of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground;
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapors, fly apace,
And hover o'er the smiling face
Of these pastures; where they come,
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore from such danger lock
Every one his loved flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away;
Or the crafty, thievish fox,
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourself from these,

Be not too secure in ease;

So shall you good shepherds prove,

And deserve your master's love.

Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers

And soft silence fall in numbers

On your eyelids. So farewell:
Thus I end my evening knell.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Bugle Song.

THE splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story;

The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes-dying, dying, dying!

Oh hark, oh hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, further going!

O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow! let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes-dying, dying, dying!
O love, they die in yon rich sky;

They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer-dying, dying, dying!

ALFRED TENNYSON.

The Evening Wind.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice! thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day!
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high
their spray,

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And languishing to hear thy welcome sound,
Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the
sight.

Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth-
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest ;

Curl the still waters, bright with stars; and

rouse

The wide, old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning, from the innumerable boughs,
The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast.
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the
grass.

Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway
The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone;
That they who near the churchyard willows

stray,

And listen in the deepening gloom, alone,