Spring flowers, like fortune's lightness,

With calm skies pass away; But this reveals its brightness

'Mid silence and decay;

Like thy pure steadfast spirit, strong in sorrow's darkest day.

MY NATIVE VALE.

ROGERS.

DEAR is my little native vale,

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there;
Close by my cot she tells her tale

To every passing villager.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange groves and myrtle bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my loved Lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave,
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent greenwood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

THE SOMNAMBULIST.

WORDSWORTH.

LIST, ye who pass by Lyulph's Tower,
At eve, how softly then
Doth Aira-force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen!

Fit music for a solemn vale!

And holier seems the ground To him who catches on the gale The spirit of a mournful tale, Embodied in the sound.

Not far from that fair site whereon
The pleasure-house is reared,
As story says, in antique days,
A stern-brow'd house appeared;
Foil to a jewel rich in light,
There set and guarded well,
Cage for a bird of plumage bright,
Sweet-voiced, nor wishing for a flight
Beyond her native dell.

To win this bright bird from her cage,
To make this gem their own,
Came barons bold with store of gold,
And knights of high renown;
But one she prized, and only one,-

Sir Eglamore was he:

Full happy season, when was known,
Ye dales and hills! to you alone,
Their mutual loyalty!

Known chiefly, Aira! to thy glen,
Thy brook, and bowers of holly;
Where Passion caught what Nature taught,
That all but Love is folly;

Where Fact with Fancy stooped to play,
Doubt came not nor regret ;
To trouble hours that winged their way
As if through an immortal day
Whose sun could never set.

But in old times, Love dwelt not long
Sequestered with repose;

Best throve the fire of chaste desire,
Fanned by the breath of foes.
"A conquering lance is beauty's test,
And proves the lover true;"
So spake Sir Eglamore, and pressed
The drooping Emma to his breast,
And looked a blind adieu.

They parted.-Well with him it fared
Through wide-spread regions errant ;
A knight of proof in love's behoof,
The thirst of faine his warrant:
And she her happiness can build

On woman's quiet hours;

Though faint, compared with spear and shield, The solace beads and masses yield,

And needlework and flowers.

Yet blest was Emma when she heard

Her Champion's praise recounted; Though brain would swim and eyes grow dim, And high her blushes mounted;

Or when a bold, heroic lay

She warbled from full heart: Delightful blossoms for the May Of absence! but they will not stay, Born only to depart.

Hope wanes with her, while lustre fills
Whatever path he chooses;

As if his orb, that owns no curb,
Received the light hers loses.
He comes not back; an ampler space
Requires for nobler deeds;

He ranges on from place to place,

Till of his doings is no trace

But what her fancy breeds.

His fame may spread, but in the past
Her spirit finds its centre;
Clear sight she has of what he was,

And that would now content her.

"Still is he my devoted knight?"

The tear in answer flows;

Month falls on month with heavier weight;

Day sickens round her, and the night
Is empty of repose.

In sleep she sometimes walked abroad, Deep sighs with quick words blending, Like that pale queen whose hands are seen With fancied spots contending;

But she is innocent of blood,

The moon is not more pure

That shines aloft, while through the wood She thrids her way, the sounding flood Her melancholy lure!

While 'mid the fern-brake sleeps the doe,
And owls alone are waking,

In white arrayed, glides on the maid,
The downward pathway taking,
That leads her to the torrent's side,

And to a holly bower;

By whom on this still night descried?
By whom in that lone place espied?
By thee, Sir Eglamore!

A wandering ghost, so thinks the knight,
His coming step has thwarted,
Beneath the boughs that heard their vows,
Within whose shade they parted.
Hush, hush, the busy sleeper see!
Perplexed her fingers seem,

As if they from the holly tree
Green twigs would pluck, as rapidly

Flung from her to the stream.