Round some idol waits, as on their lord the Nine? Elfin court 'twould seem;

And taught perchance that dream

Which the old Greek mountain dreamt upon nights divine.

To expound such wonder

Human speech avails not;

Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a glory exhales not.

Think of all these treasures,
Matchless works and pleasures,

Every one a marvel, more than thought can say;
Then think in what bright showers

We thicken fields and bowers,

And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle wanton May:

Think of the mossy forests

By the bee-birds haunted,

And all those Amazonian plains, lone lying as enchanted!

Trees themselves are ours;

Fruits are born of flowers;

Peach and roughest nut were blossoms in the spring; The lusty bee knows well

The news, and comes pell-mell,

And dances in the bloomy thicks with darksome antheming.

Beneath the very burthen

Of planet-pressing ocean

We wash our smiling cheeks in peace, a thought for meek devotion.

Tears of Phoebus,-missings
Of Cytherea's kissings,

Have in us been found, and wise men find them

still;

Drooping grace unfurls

Still Hyacinthus' curls,

And Narcissus loves himself in the selfish rill;
Thy red lip, Adonis,

Still is wet with morning;

And the step that bled for thee, the rosy briar adorning.

Who shall say that flowers

Dress not heav'n's own bowers?

Who its love, without them, can fancy,-or sweet floor?

Who shall even dare

To say we sprang not there,

And came not down that Love might bring one piece of heav'n the more?

Oh pray believe that angels
From those blue dominions

Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their golden pinions.

LEIGH HUNT.

AN END.

LOVE, strong as death, is dead.

A

Come, let us make his bed

Among the dying flowers; green turf at his head,

And a stone at his feet,

Whereon we may sit

In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the spring,
And died before the harvesting;

On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For autumn twilights, cold and grey;
Sit we by his grave and sing,
"He is gone away."

To few chords, and sad, and low,
Sing we so.

Be our eyes fix'd on the grass,
Shadow-veil'd, as the years pass,
While we think of all that was

In the long ago.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

W

TO A WATER-FOWL.

HITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way!

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,―
The desert and illimitable air,—
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy shelter'd nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He, who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain

flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

W. C. BRYANT.

VENUS OF THE NEEDLE.

MARYANNE, you pretty girl,
Intent on silky labour,

Of sempstresses the pink and pearl,
Excuse a peeping neighbour!

Those eyes for ever drooping, give
The long brown lashes rarely;
But violets in the shadows live,—
For once unveil them fairly.

Hast thou not lent that flounce enough
Of looks so long and earnest?
Lo, here's more 66 penetrable stuff"
To which thou never turnest.

Ye graceful fingers, deftly sped!
How slender, and how nimble !
O might I wind their skeins of thread,
Or but pick up their thimble!

How blest the youth whom love shall bring,

And happy stars embolden,

To change the dome into a ring,

The silver into golden!

Who'll steal some morning to her side

To take her finger's measure, While Maryanne pretends to chide, And blushes deep with pleasure.

Who'll watch her sew her wedding-gown,
Well conscious that it is hers;
Who'll glean a tress, without a frown,
With those so ready scissors.

Who'll taste those ripenings of the south,

The fragrant and deliciousDon't put the pins into your mouth, O Maryanne, my precious!

I almost wish it were my trust

To teach how shocking that is;