The beard and the hair
Of the River-god were
Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light

Of the fleet Nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.

'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

With the brackish Dorian stream.
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;
Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams
Which amid the streams

Weave a network of coloured light;

And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night :

Outspeeding the shark

And the swordfish dark,

Under the ocean foam,
And up through the rifts

Of the mountain clifts,

They passed to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap

From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore,—
Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky

When they love but live no more.

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

SHELLEY.

Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,
That my soul cannot resist ;

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, 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,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Song

'A WEARY lot is thine, fair maid, A weary lot is thine!

LONGFELLOW.

To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine!

A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,

A doublet of the Lincoln green,-
No more of me you knew,

No more of me you knew.

My love

'This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;

But she shall bloom in winter snow,
Ere we two meet again.'

He turn'd his charger as he spake,

Upon the river shore,

He gave his bridle-reins a shake,
Said, 'Adieu for evermore,

My love!

And adieu for evermore.'

SCOTT.

The Two April Mornings

WE walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun :

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
'The will of God be done !'

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey ;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the steaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

'Our work,' said I, 'was well begun ; Then, from thy breast what thought, Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?'

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

'And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn,
Of this the very brother.

'With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And, to the church-yard come, stopped short Beside my daughter's grave.

'Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang ;-she would have been A very nightingale.

'Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more,

For so it seemed, than till that day
I e'er had loved before.

'And, turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the church-yard yew,
A blooming girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

'A basket on her head she bare;

Her brow was smooth and white :
To see a child so very fair
It was a pure delight!

'No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

'There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;

I looked at her, and looked again,
And did not wish her mine!'

Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.

WORDSWORTH.