And the rust on the sunburnt sod, That, ripe for the reaper, the barley Silvered the acres broad. Then certain among the people, While riot and hunt and horn "Shall make of his sword a sickle, Right sadly Saint Cuthbert listened; Then he dreamed that he saw descending Who heaped in the low-eaved barn LINN (LYN), THE RIVER. In the cool of the crispy morning, Ere the lark had quitted her nest In the beaded grass, the sleeper Arose from his place of rest; 103 "For," he sighed, I must toil till the gloaming Is graying the golden west.” He turned to look at his corn-land; Margaret J. Preston. Linn (Lyn), the River. EVEN WATERS-MEET. (Recollection of Homer.) VEN thus, methinks, in some Ionian isle, On briery banks that wondrous minstrel-boy; The sound and force of waters; and he fed THI LINN-CLEEVE. HIS onward-deepening gloom; this hanging path Over the Linn that soundeth mightily, Foaming and tumbling on, as if in wrath That aught should bar its passage to the sea; Hung with thick woods, the native haunt of deer For opposite my crib, long years ago, Were pictured just such rocks, just such a stream, As when some sight calls back a half-forgotten dream. Henry Alford. Liverpool. THE MERSEY AND THE IRWELL. SUGGESTED by a very curious and interesting model of the little town of Liverpool, as it existed in the earlier part of the last century. A CENTURY since the Mersey flowed Unburdened to the sea; In the blue air no smoky cloud Hung over wood and lea, Where the old church with the fretted tower Had a hamlet round its knee. And all along the eastern way The grass grew quietly all the day, Only the rooks were black; And the pedler frightened the lambs at play With his knapsack on his back. Where blended Irk and Irwell streamed A century since the pedler still Might see the weekly markets fill And the people ebb and flow Beneath St. Mary's on the hill A hundred years ago. Since then a vast and filmy veil Is o'er the landscape drawn, Smoke, rising from a thousand fires, And the England of our slow-paced sires Yet man lives not by bread alone, The human heart, which seemed so dead, To right and left we hear it said, "Nay; 't is a noble heart," And the angels whisper overhead," "There's a new shrine in the mart!" |