CHERRY RIPE

THERE is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow; There cherries grow that none may buy, Till Cherry Ripe themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow:
Yet them no peer nor prince may buy,
Till Cherry Ripe themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;

Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill

All that approach with eye or hand, These sacred cherries to come nigh, —Till Cherry Ripe themselves do cry!

MORNING

PACK, clouds, away, and welcome day,
With night we banish sorrow,
Sweet air blow soft, mount Lark aloft
To give my Love good-morrow.
Wings from the wind, to please her mind,
Notes from the Lark I'll borrow;

Bird prune thy wing, Nightingale sing,
To give my Love good-morrow;

To give my Love good-morrow
Notes from them all I'll borrow.

ANON

Wake from thy nest, Robin Red-breast,
Sing birds in every furrow,
And from each hill, let music shrill,
Give my fair Love good-morrow:
Black-bird and thrush, in every

bush,

Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow !
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
Sing my fair Love good-morrow.
To give my Love good-morrow
Sing birds in every furrow.

T. HEYWOOD.

DEATH THE LEVELLER

THE glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

Upon Death's purple altar now,

See where the victor-victim bleeds:
Your heads must come

To the cold tomb,

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

J. SHIRLEY.

N

ANNAN WATER

ANNAN Water's wading deep,

And my Love Annie's wondrous bonny; And I am loath she should wet her feet, Because I love her best of ony.'

He's loupen on his bonny gray,

He rode the right gate and the ready;
For all the storm he wadna stay,
For seeking of his bonny lady.

And he has ridden o'er field and fell,

Through moor, and moss, and many a mire; His spurs of steel were sair to bide, And from her four feet flew the fire.

'My bonny gray, now play your part!
If ye be the steed that wins my dearie,
With corn and hay ye'll be fed for aye,

And never spur shall make you wearie.'

The gray was a mare, and a right gude mare ; But when she wan the Annan Water,

She could not have ridden the ford that night Had a thousand merks been wadded at her.

'O boatman, boatman, put off your boat, Put off your boat for golden money!' But for all the gold in fair Scotland,

He dared not take him through to Annie.

'O I was sworn so late yestreen,
Not by a single oath, but mony !
I'll cross the drumly stream to-night,
Or never could I face my honey.'

The side was stey, and the bottom deep,
From bank to brae the water pouring;
The bonny gray mare she swat for fear,
For she heard the water-kelpy roaring.

He spurr'd her forth into the flood,

I wot she swam both strong and steady;
But the stream was broad, and her strength did fail,
And he never saw his bonny lady!

UNKNOWN.

TO A WATERFOWL

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,--

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy shelter'd nest.

Thou'rt gone-the abyss of heaven Hath swallow'd up thy form-yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He, who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,

W. C. BRYANT.