THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. By LONGFELLOW. WE sat within the farmhouse old, Not far away we saw the port, The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,The lighthouse,-the dismantled fort,The wooden houses, quaint and brown. We sat and talked until the night, 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, The first slight swerving of the heart, 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, 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, Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain,— O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! They were indeed to much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within. THE OLD GREEN LANE. By ELIZA COOK. 'Twas the very merry summer time The cuckoo stood on the lady birch To bid her last good-bye— The lark sprung over the village church, And we had come from the harvest sheaves, And tracked our paths with poppy leaves 'Twas a pleasant way on a sunny day, And we were a happy set, And we idly bent where the streamlet went With the dog-rose there, and the orchis there, As we lay on the bank, by the shepherd's cot, Oh, days gone by! I can but sigh As I think on that rich hour, When my heart in its glee but seemed to be For though the trees be still as fair, Though the south wind sends as sweet an air, Yet the merry set are far and wide, And we ne'er shall meet again, OUR FIRST BORN. From The Ballad of Babe Christabel, by GERALD MASSEY, one of the true poets of our time. O HAPPY husband! happy wife! The rarest blessing Heaven drops down, Starts in the furrows of your life! God! what a towering height ye win, Look how a star of glory swims So brightening came Babe Christabel, With looking on her miracle. With hands so flower-like, soft, and fair, As faery-light as feet of air. The father, down in Toil's mirk mine, The mother moves with queenlier tread : A pillow for the baby-head! Their natures deepen, well-like, clear, By eyes anointed Beauty's seer. A sense of glory all things took,— The red rose-heart of Dawn would blow, And Sundown's sumptuous pictures show Babe-cherubs wearing their babe's look! And round their peerless one they clung, And hearts for very fulness sung Of what their budding babe shall grow, And crown'd the summit of some life, And they should bless her for a bride, In some heart's seventh heaven, should sit, As now in theirs, all glorified! But O! 'twas all too white a brow So To flush with passion that doth fire With Hymen's torch its own death-pyre,pure her heart was beating now! And thus they built their castles brave THE SLAVE'S DREAM. By LONGFELLOW. BESIDE the ungathered rice he lay, His breast was bare, his matted hair Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, Wide through the landscape of his dreams Descend the mountain-road. He saw once more his dark-eyed queen They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks, They held him by the hand! A tear burst from the sleeper's lids And fell into the sand. |