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, We brought away from battle, РЕАСОск. Arethusa From her couch of snows From cloud and from crag, With many a jag She leapt down the rocks With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams ; Her steps paved with green The downward ravine And gliding and springing, She went, ever singing, The Earth seemed to love her And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, And opened a chasm In the rocks :—with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It concealed behind And earthquake and thunder The beard and the hair Of the River-god were been through the torrent's sweep, As he followed the light Of the fleet Nymph's flight ‘Oh, save me ! Oh, guide me ! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair !' The loud Ocean heard, To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer ; And under the water: The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam ; Behind her descended, Her billows, unblended Like a gloomy stain On the emerald main Alpheus rushed behind, As an eagle pursuing A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind. Under the bowers Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones ; Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods ; Through the dim beams Which amid the streams Weave a network of coloured light ; And under the caves, Where the shadowy waves And the swordfish dark,- And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts,They passed to their Dorian home. And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, At sunrise they leap At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel ; And at night they sleep In the rocking deep Like spirits that lie In the azure sky SHELLEY. The Day is Done The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, That my soul cannot resist ; That is not akin to pain, As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo 'Through the corridors of Time. För, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavour ; And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start ; Who, through long days of labour, And nights devoid of ease, Of wonderful melodies. The restless pulse of care, That follows after prayer. The poem of thy choice, The beauty of thy voice. And the cares that infest the day LONGFELLOW. 6 Song A weary lot is thine ! And press the rue for wine ! A feather of the blue, My love |