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Beautiful Poetry,

THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED.

Translated from the Spanish of LUIS PONCE DE LEON.

REGION of life and light!

Land of the good whose earthly toils are o'er!
Nor frost nor heat may blight

Thy vernal beauty, fertile shore,
Yielding thy blessed fruits for evermore!

There, without crook or sling,

Walks the good shepherd; blossoms white and red
Round his meek temples cling;

And to sweet pastures led,

His own loved flock beneath his eye is fed.

He guides, and near him they
Follow delighted, for he makes them go
Where dwells eternal May,

And heavenly roses blow,
Deathless, and gather'd but again to grow.

He leads them to the height
Named of the infinite and long-sought Good,
And fountains of delight;

And where his feet have stood

Springs up, along the way, their tender food.

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And when, in the mid skies,

The climbing sun has reach'd his highest bound,
Reposing as he lies,

With all his flock around,

He witches the still air with numerous sound.

From his sweet lute flow forth
Immortal harmonies, of power to still
All passions born of earth,

And draw the ardent will
Its destiny of goodness to fulfil.

Might but a little part,

A wandering breath of that high melody,
Descend into my heart,

And change it till it be

Transform'd and swallow'd up, O love! in thee.

Ah! then my soul should know,
Beloved! where thou liest at noon of day,
And from this place of woe

Released, should take its way

To mingle with thy flock and never stray.

DREAM OF A WANDERER.

By FRANCIS DAVIS, a living poet of Ireland, having great promise in him.

I LOOK'D upon the ocean,

And I look'd upon the strand;

I look'd upon the heaven

That o'erhung the stranger's land;
But the brilliant blue was wanting,
And the robe of many dyes,
That each sea-sprung vale displayeth
Where my native mountains rise.
And the waves, like warlike spirits,
In their darkly-glistening shrouds,
Rose and flung their silvery helmets
In the pathway of the clouds:
But the breeze of bracing freshness,
That my fevered frame did seek,
In an icy odour only

Wanton'd o'er my wasted cheek.

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But a soothing angel hover'd
By that darkly-writhing main,
And on dreamy pinions bore me
Το my native isle again.

Oh, the sweetness and the brightness
Of her meadows and her rills,
And the rainbow tinge of beauty
That was sleeping on her hills,
As the rosy lip of morning,
In the ripeness of its sheen,
Burst, and roll'd a golden current
O'er the glistening glancing green;
Where the little shamrock shaded
Stem and leaf from human sight,
Underneath the hoary crystal
Of a chasten'd autumn night:
While the breezes

Woo'd the daisies,

With a heaven in their tone;

And the fountains

On the mountains

All in ruddied silver shone.

How I leap'd upon those mountains!
How I gazed upon that sky!
Till my very spirit revell'd

Through a galaxy of joy:

But the beauteous vision's fading
To a scene of darker hue;
And an ocean strand of strangers
Bursts again upon my view;

And the mountain billows marshall'd
In their merry might advance:
How I trembled as they gamboll'd
In their fearful foamy dance!

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By the Rev. CHARLES KINGSLEY, author of Yeast, &c.

THREE fishers went sailing out into the West,

Out into the West as the sun went down,

Each thought of the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,

And there's little to earn, and many to keep,

Though the harbour-bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And trimm'd the lamps as the sun went down,

And they look'd at the squall, and they look'd at the shower, And the rack it came rolling up, ragged and brown;

But men must work, and women must weep,

Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,

And the harbour-bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands,

In the morning gleam, as the tide went down,

And the women are watching and wringing their hands,
For those that will never come back to the town;

For men must work, and women must weep,

And the sooner it 's over, the sooner to sleep,
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

AMERICA.

Two Sonnets by ALEXANDER SMITH.

ΜΕΝ say, Columbia, we shall hear thy guns.
But in what tongue shall be thy battle-cry?
Not that our sires did love in years gone by,
When all the Pilgrim fathers were little sons
In merrie homes of England! Back and see
Thy satchel'd ancestor! Behold, he runs
To mine, and, clasp'd, they tread the equal lea
To the same village-school, where side by side
They spell "Our Father." Hard by, the twin-pride
Of that gray hall whose ancient oriel gleams
Through yon baronial pines, with looks of light
Our sister-mothers sit beneath one tree.
Meanwhile our Shakspere wanders past and dreams
His Helena and Hermia. Shall we fight?

Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! Oh ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; ye, who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative blood
This universal English, and do stand
Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole,
Far yet unsever'd-children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue; and ye shall be
Lords of an empire wide as Shakspere's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

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