Even as has the year, it found a home
For all its young affections, gentle thoughts,
In his true maiden's bosom; and the life
He dream'd of was indeed a dream-'twas made
Of quiet happiness; but forth he went
Into the wild world's tumult. As the bloom
Fades from the face of nature, so the gloss
Of his warm feelings faded with their freshness;
Ambition took the place of Love, and Hope
Fed upon fiery thoughts, aspiring aims;
And the bold warrior, favourite of his king,
If that he thought of his first tenderness,
Thought of it but with scorn, or vain excuse,
And in her uncomplaining silence read
But what he wish'd-oblivion; and at last
Her very name had faded, like the flower
Which we have laid upon our heart, and there
Have suffer'd it to die. A second spring
Has loosed the snowy waters, and has fill'd
The valleys with her joy; but, Agatha,
It is not spring for thee; it has not brought
Its sunny beauty to thy deep blue eyes,
Its dew to freshen thy lips' languid rose,
And its bloom is not for thy cheek. One year,
And thou didst hide thy misery, and seem,
With thy gay songs and smiles and gladsome words,
Still in thine aged father's sight the same.
His pride was wounded by young Herman's falsehood,
But not his happiness; and when he died,
It was with blessings breathed in trusting hope
Upon that dear child's head, whose tenderness
Had made him half forget the path he trod
Was hurrying to the grave. But he was dead,
And Agatha stood in his lonely halls,
An orphan, last of all her race and name,
Without one tie of kindred or of love
To bind her to the earth. Yet few there were
That dream'd the hidden grief that lurk'd within.
Too kind, too gentle, not to be beloved,
Many a vassal mourn'd the coming death,
Whose sign was written on his lady's cheek.
She died in silence, without sign or word
That might betray the memory of her fate;
But when they heard her last request, to lie
Beneath the shade of the laburnum tree,
Which grew beside the mountain rivulet,
Many a cheek grew red, and brow grew dark,
And many a whisper'd word recall'd the time
When, in unworldly and in happy youth,
The valley's chieftain and the mountain girl
Made it their favourite haunt; all call'd to mind,
Then was the morning colour on her cheek,
Then her life was as summer in its smile,
And all felt, as they laid her in the grave,
It was the lorn rest of the broken heart.
Years pass'd:-the green moss had o'ergrown the stone
Which mark'd the orphan maiden's lowly grave,
When rode an armed train beside the stream.
Why does One pause beneath the lonely tree,
And watch the starlight fall on the white stone?
That martial step, that haughty brow, so traced
With lines of the world's warfare, are not such
As linger with a ready sympathy
O'er the foot-prints of sorrow; yet that cheek
Was startled into paleness as he read
Agatha !-and the mossy date which told
She had been tenant of that tomb for years.
Herman-for he it was had sought the vale,
But upon warlike mission-if he thought
Of his once love, but it was to shun
The meek reproaching of her mournful eye,
Or else to think she had like him forgot.
But dead!-so young !-he had not dream'd of this.
He knelt him down, and like a child he wept :
Gentle affections struggled with, subdued—
Tenderness, long forgotten, now burst forth
Like raindrops from the summer sky. Those tears
Pass'd, and their outward trace; but in his heart
A fountain had sprung up which dried no more.
He went on in his course, proud, bold, and never
The name of Agatha fell from his lips.
But he died early, and in his last field
He pray'd the brother of his arms to take
His heart, and lay it in the distant grave
Where Agatha was sleeping.
20.-THE WATER.
J. E. CARPENTER,
Ir is a bright and blessed thing,
A joy-giver to earth,
It bursts from many a hidden spring,
In many a cave has birth;
It rushes from the mountain peaks,
It glitters in the sun,
And where the torrent bounds and leaps
Its course is never done.
It whispers in the grassy dell,
Where happy childhood plays:
The sweet wild flower knows it well,
The herb its law obeys.
It sparkles in the dews of night
A gem, a ray, a star,
And in the fountain's liquid light
How bright its glories are!
It sleeps within its frozen home,
Where man may never be,
Then grandly marches o'er the foam,
When God has set it free.
It echoes back the thunder's crash,
When mighty tempests blow,
And giant waves the breakers lash,
Where the seaman fears to go.
It sings when falls the gentle shower,
It dances in the hail,
And when the snow-flake hides the flower, "Tis sweet to see it sail.
Calm as a sleeping child it lies,
It wakes majestic-grand;
It paints the rainbow in the skies,
And beautifies the land.
"Tis held in every fleecy cloud
That's silver'd by the sun,
It flows for all alike,-endow'd
With health for every one;
It fills the rich and clustering vine,
It makes the fruit to grow:
The fleecy flocks, the lowing kine,
Its countless blessings know.
Oh! is it not a holy thing,
And sanctified for all!
That pure and everlasting spring,
From whence such blessings fall-
The water? Water!-sea and sky,
Proclaim its wondrous worth;
The type of immortality!
Life-giver to the earth!
21. THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUTY.
[John Keats was born in London 1796; he was intended for a surgeon, and published his mystical poem "Endymion" before he was twenty, a circumstance that ought to have procured for it a kindly consideration-but nothing was too young or too innocent for the savages of "The Quarterly."
In Keats' case the shot did not hit, for before the article appeared the young poet was taken to Italy; but he could not outstrip that galloping consumption that had seized him. He was buried in "the strangers' ground" in Rome, where he died Dec. 27, 1820.
Keats displayed in his writings an immense amount of imagination, and it may be safely asserted that much of our recent poetry has been influenced by them.]
A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season: the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now, while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now, while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy-pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the
year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
Oh! may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished; but let autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, through flowers and weed.
Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
Into o'erhanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequester'd deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb stray'd far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By any wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay, great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
|