stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of sad

dest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come

near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound;

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Chy skil to poet were, thou scorner of the

ground!

Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love bel
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

Oh to abide in the desert with thee!

SONG.

JAMES HOGG.

'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark,

That bids a blithe good-morrow;
But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark
To the soothing song of sorrow.

O nightingale! What doth she ail?
And is she sad or jolly?

For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth
So like to melancholy.

The merry lark, he soars on high,

No worldly thought o'ertakes him:

He sings aloud to the clear blue sky,
And the daylight that awakes him.
As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay,

The nightingale is trilling;
With feeling bliss, no less than his,
Her little heart is thrilling.

Yet ever and anon, a sigh

Peers through her lavish mirth; For the lark's bold song is of the sky, And hers is of the earth.

By night and day, she tunes her lay,
To drive away all sorrow;
For bliss, alas! to-night must pass,
And woe may come to-morrow.

SONG.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

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.

Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill let music shrill

Give my fair love good-morrow.
Blackbird 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.

THOMAS HEYWOOD

THE ANGLER'S TRYSTING-TREE.

SING, Sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Meet the morn upon the lea;
Are the emeralds of the spring
On the angler's trysting-tree?
Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me!

Are there buds on our willow-tree? Buds and birds on our trysting-tree i

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing! Have you met the honey-bee, Circling upon rapid wing,

'Round the angler's trysting-tree? Up, sweet thrushes, up and see! Are there bees at our willow-tree? Birds and bees at the trysting-tree.

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Are the fountains gushing free?
Is the south wind wandering
Through the angler's trysting-tree?
Up, sweet thrushes, tell to me!
Is there wind up our willow-tree?
Wind or calm at our trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Wile us with a merry glee;
To the flowery haunts of spring-
To the angler's trysting-tree.
Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me!
Are there flowers 'neath our willow-tree!
Spring and flowers at the trysting-tree?

THOMAS TOD STODDART.

THE ANGLER.

On the gallant fisher's life,

It is the best of any: 'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, And 't is beloved by many;

Other joys

Are but toys;
Only this

Lawful is;
For our skill

Breeds no ill,

But content and pleasure.

In a morning, up we rise,

Ere Aurora's peeping; Drink a cup to wash our eyes, Leave the sluggard sleeping:

Then we go,
To and fro,

With our knacks

At our backs,

We all pearls scorn

Save what the dewy norn

Congeals upon each little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass;

And gold ne'er here appears,

Save what the yellow Ceres bears.

Blest silent groves, oh, may you be,
For ever, mirth's best nursery!
May pure contents

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains;

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains,

Which we may every year

Meet, when we come a-fishing here.
SIR HENRY WOTTON.

THE ANGLER'S WISH.

I IN these flowery meads would be,
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I, with my angle, would rejoice,

Sit here, and see the turtle-dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love;

Or, on that bank, feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty; please my mind,
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers;

Here, hear my kenna sing a song:
There, see a blackbird feed her young,

Or a laverock build her nest;
Here, give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love.

Thus, free from lawsuits, and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice;

Or, with my Bryan and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford brook;
There sit by him, and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;

And angle on; and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.

IZAAK WALTON.

THE BOBOLINK.
BOBOLINK! that in the meadow,
Or beneath the orchard's shadow,
Keepest up a constant rattle
Joyous as my children's prattle,
Welcome to the north again!
Welcome to mine ear thy strain,
Welcome to mine eye the sight
Of thy buff, thy black and white.
Brighter plumes may greet the sun
By the banks of Amazon;
Sweeter tones may weave the spell
Of enchanting Philomel;
But the tropic bird would fail,
And the English nightingale,
If we should compare their worth
With thine endless, gushing mirth.

When the ides of May are past,
June and Summer nearing fast,
While from depths of blue above
Comes the mighty breath of love,
Calling out each bud and flower
With resistless, secret power,—
Waking hope and fond desire,
Kindling the erotic fire,—
Filling youths' and maidens' dreams
With mysterious, pleasing themes;
Then, amid the sunlight clear
Floating in the fragrant air,
Thou dost fill each heart with pleasure
By thy glad ecstatic measure.

A single note, so sweet and low,
Like a full heart's overflow,
Forms the prelude; but the strain
Gives no such tone again,
For the wild and saucy song
Leaps and skips the notes among,
With such quick and sportive play,
Ne'er was madder, merrier lay.

Gayest songster of the Spring!
Thy melodies before me bring
Visions of some dream-built land,
Where, by constant zephyrs fanned,
I might walk the livelong day,
Embosomed in perpetual May.
Nor care nor fear thy bosom knows;
For thee a tempest never blows;

But when our northern Summer's o'er,
By Delaware's or Schuylkill's shore
The wild rice lifts its airy head,
And royal feasts for thee are spread.
And when the Winter threatens there,
Thy tireless wings yet own no fear,
But bear thee to more southern coasts,
Far beyond the reach of frosts.

Bobolink! still may thy gladness
Take from me all taints of sadness;
Fill my soul with trust unshaken
In that Being who has taken
Care for every living thing,

In Summer, Winter, Fall, and Spring.

TO THE CUCKOO.

THOMAS HILL

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of Spring!
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,

And woods thy welcome sing.

Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear.

Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful vistant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,

And hear the sound of music sweet

From birds among the bowers.

The schoolboy, wandering through the wood To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, thy most curious voice to hear,

And imitates thy lay.

What time the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fliest thy vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another Spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No Winter in thy year!

Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Attendants on the Spring.

JOHN LOGAN.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard.
I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird.
Or but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass,
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The same that in my school-boy days

I listened to that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways,
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love-
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain

And listen till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed bird! the earth we pace,
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place,
That is fit home for thee!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTIL

THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

I.

THE God of Love,-ah benedicite!

28

How mighty and how great a lord is he!
For he of low hearts can make high; of high
He can make low, and unto death bring nigh;
And hard hearts, he can make them kind and

free.