The swallow, summer, comes again;

The owlet, night, resumes her reign;

But the wild swan, youth, is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou.

My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.

Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron's head,
Violets for a maiden dead —

Pansies let my flowers be;

On the living grave I bear,
Scatter them without a tear,

Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

The Voiceless.

We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,
But o'er their silent sister's breast

The wild flowers who will stoop to number?

A few can touch the magic string,

And noisy fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing,

But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone,

Whose song has told their hearts' sad story: Weep for the voiceless, who have known

The cross without the crown of glory! Not where Leucadian breezes sweep

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's church-yard pillow.

O hearts that break, and give no sign,
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his cordial wine,
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses!
If singing breath or echoing chord

To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Dream-land.

WHERE sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep:

Awake her not.

Led by a single star,
She came from very far,

To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn

And water-springs.

Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest Shed over brow and breast; Her face is toward the west,

The purple land. She cannot see the grain Ripening on hill and plain; She cannot feel the rain Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core

Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake,
Night that no morn shall break,
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.

CHRISTINA GABRIELLA ROSSETTI.

A Lament.

O WORLD! O life! O time!
On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before,
When will return the glory of your prime↑
No more-oh, nevermore!

And some one came out of the cheers in the street

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with heav

en,

They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?

I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven

Through that love and sorrow which reconciled so The above and below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark

To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray,

me.

-My Guido was dead!— I fell down at his feet,

While they cheered in the street.

Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,

And no last word to say!

sublime

we all

Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.

'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall. And when Italy's made, for what end is it done,

If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport

Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of

men ?

When your guns of Cavalli with final retort Have cut the game short,

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,

When you have your country from mountain to sea,

When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my dead,)

What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,

And burn your lights faintly! My country is there,

Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow, My Italy's there,- with my brave civic pair, To disfranchise despair.