How wild and dim this life appears! When o'er our eyes, half closed in tears, The images of former years Are faintly glittering by! And still forgotten while they go; As, on the sea beach, wave on wave Dissolves at once in snow. The amber clouds one moment lie, Then, like a dream, are gone. Though beautiful the moonbeams play On the lake's bosom, bright as they, And the soul intensely loves their stay, Soon as the radiance melts away, We scarce believe it shone ! Heaven-airs amid the harp-strings dwell, And we wish they ne'er may fade;— They cease,--and the soul is a silent cell, Where music never played! Dream follows dream, through the long night hours, Each lovelier than the last: But, ere the breath of morning flowers, And many a sweet angelic cheek, While in a day we cannot tell Where shone the face we loved so well, WILSON. THE CATARACT OF LODORE. HERE it comes sparkling, It hastens along, conflicting, strong, Its caverns and rocks among. Rising and leaping, Sinking and creeping, In turmoil delighting; Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound. Receding and speeding, And threading and spreading, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping, And curling and whirling and purling and twirling; Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing, Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling and boiling, And thumping and flumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing; And so never ending, but always descend ing, Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending, All at once and all o'er, with a mighty up roar And this way the water comes down at Lodore. SOUTHEY. GOOD HEART AND WILLING HAND. IN storm or shine, two friends of mine 'Tis willing hand! 'tis cheerful heart! Merrily sound the song! Come shine-'tis bright! come dark--'tis | So heavily fall the hammer-stroke! Who falls may stand, if good right hand Is first, not second best: Who weeps may sing, if kindly heart The humblest board has dainties poured, They fill the purse with honest gold, Without these twain, the poor complain Of evils hard to bear; But with them poverty grows rich, And finds a loaf to spare! Their looks are fire-their words inspire- About their knees the children run, Or climb, they know not why. CHARLES MACKAY. Where a band cometh slowly with weeping Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathand wail? "Tis the Chief of Glenara laments for his dear; ful and loud; "And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem: And her sire and her people are called to Glenara! Glenara! now read me my her bier. dream!" Glenara came first with the mourners and Oh! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, shroud; I ween, Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned When the shroud was unclosed, and no not aloud; body was seen; Their plaids all their bosoms were folded Then a voice from the kinsmen spoke around; louder in scornThey marched all in silence-they looked 'Twas the youth that had loved the fair to the ground. Ellen of Lorn,— In silence they reached over mountain and "I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her grief; moor, To a heath where the oak tree grew lonely I dreamed that her lord was a barbarous and hoar; 66 chief; Now here let us place the gray stone of On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did her cairn seem: Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the Glenara! Glenara! now read me my stern. dream!" 66 And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground, spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye And the desert revealed where his lady your brows?" was found: So spake the rude chieftain: no answer From a rock of the ocean that beauty is is made, borne: But each mantle unfolding, a dagger dis- Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of played! Lorn! CAMPBELL. SONG OF THE WINTER TREE. WHAT a happy life was mine, when the | I was hailed with smiling praise in the sunbeams used to shine Like golden threads about my summer suit! When my warp and woof of green let enough of light between, Just to dry the dew that lingered at my root. What troops of friends I had, when my form was richly clad, When I was fair 'mid fairest things of earth! Good company came round, and I heard no rougher sound glowing summer days, And the beautiful green tree was loved by all. But the bleak wind has swept by, and the gray cloud dimmed the sky My latest leaf has left my inmost bough; I creak in grating tones, like the skeleton's bleached bones, And not a footstep seeks the old tree now. Than childhood's laugh in bold and leaping I stand at morning's dawn, the cheerless mirth. and forlorn; The sunset comes and finds me still alone: The old man sat him down to note my The mates who shared my bloom have left me in my gloom; emerald crown, And rest beneath my branches thick and Birds, poet, dancers, children-all are bright; The squirrel on the spray kept swinging all the day, And the song-birds chattered to me through the night. gone. The hearts that turned this way when I stood in fine array, Forsake me now, as though I ceased to be: The dreaming poet laid his soft harp in my I win no painter's gaze, I hear no minstrel's shade And sung my beauty, chorused by the bee; The village maiden came, to read her own dear name Carved on my bark, and bless the broad green tree. lays The very nest falls from the leafless tree. But the kind and merry train will be sure to come again, With love and smiles as ready as of yore; The merry music breathed while the I must only wait to wear my robe so rich bounding dancers wreathed In mazy windings round my giant stem; And the joyous words they poured, as they trod the chequered sward, and fair, And they will throng as they have thronged before. Told the green tree was a worshipped thing Oh! ye who dwell in pride, with parasites by them. Oh, what troops of friends I had, to make my strong heart glad! What kind ones answered to my rustling call! beside, Only lose your summer green leaves, and ye'll see That the courtly friends will change into WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command, | Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame: Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, Rule, Britannia, rule the wavesBritons never will be slaves!" The nations not so bless'd as thee, Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies Serves but to root thy native oak. All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame; But work their woe and thy renown. To thee belongs the rural reign; The Muses, still with freedom found, "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves- THOMSON. |