And the rust on the sunburnt sod, That, ripe for the reaper, the barley

Silvered the acres broad.

Then certain among the people,

Fierce folk who had laughed to scorn The cark of the patient toiler,

While riot and hunt and horn Were wiling them in the greenwood,

Cried : “ Never Northumbrian born

“Shall make of his sword a sickle,

Or help to winnow the heap:
The hand that hath sowed may garner

The grain as he list, or sleep,
And pray the hard Lord he serveth,

That his angels may come and reap."

Right sadly Saint Cuthbert listened ;

And, bowing his silvered head,
He sought for a Christ-like patience

As he lay on his rush-strewn bed,
And strength for the morrow's scything,

Till his fears and his sadness fled.

Then he dreamed that he saw descending

On the marge of the moorland tarn A circle of shining reapers,

Who heaped in the low-eaved barn The sheaves that their gleaming sickles

Had levelled at Lindisfarne.

LINN (LYN), THE RIVER.

103

In the cool of the crispy morning,

Ere the lark had quitted her nest In the beaded grass, the sleeper

Arose from his place of rest; “For,” he sighed, “I must toil till the gloaming

Is graying the golden west.”

He turned to look at his corn-land;

Did he dream ? Did he see aright? Close cut was the field of barley,

And the stubble stood thick in sight : For the reapers with shining sickles Had harvested all the night!

Margaret J. Preston.

Linn (Lyn), the River.

WATERS-MEET.

(Recollection of Homer.)

EVEN

VVEN thus, methinks, in some Ionian isle,

Yielding his soul to unrecorded joy, Beside a fall like this, lingered awhile On briery banks that wondrons minstrel-boy; Long hours there came upon his vacant ear The rushing of the river, till strange dreams Fell on him, and his youthful spirit clear Was dwelt on by the power of voiceful streams. Thenceforth begun to grow upon his soul

The sound and force of waters; and he fed
His joy at many an ancient river's head,
And echoing caves, and thunder, and the roll
Of the wakeful ocean, — till the day when he
Poured forth that stream divine of mighty melody.

Henry Alford.

LINN-CLEEVE.

HIS
IIS onward-deepening gloom; this hanging path

Over the
Foaming and tumbling on, as if in wrath
That aught should bar its passage to the sea;
These sundered walls of rock, tier upon tier,
Built darkly up into the very sky,
Hung with thick woods, the native haunt of deer
And sheep that browse the dizzy slopes on high, -
All half unreal to my fancy seem;
For opposite my crib, long years ago,
Were pictured just such rocks, just such a stream,
With just this height above and depth below;
Even this jutting crag I seem to know,
As when some sight calls back a half-forgotten dream.

Henry Alford.

Liverpool.

THE MERSEY AND THE IRWELL.

SUGGESTED by a very curious and interesting model of the little town of Liverpool, as it existed in the earlier part of the last century.

A

CENTURY since the Mersey flowed

Unburdened to the sea;
In the blue air no smoky cloud

Hung over wood and lea,
Where the old church with the fretted tower

Had a hamlet round its knee.

And all along the eastern way

The sheep fed on the track ;
The grass grew quietly all the day,

Only the rooks were black;
And the pedler frightened the lambs at play

With his knapsack on his back.

Where blended Irk and Irwell streamed

While Britons pitched the tent,
Where legionary helmets gleamed,

And Norman bows were bent,
An ancient shrine was once esteemed

Where pilgrims daily went.

A century since the pedler still

Somewhat of this might know, –

Might see the weekly markets fill

And the people ebb and flow Beneath St. Mary's on the hill

A hundred years ago.

Since then a vast and filmy veil

Is o'er the landscape drawn, Through which the sunset hues look pale,

And gray the roseate dawn ; And the fair face of hill and dale

Is apt to seem forlorn.

Smoke, rising from a thousand fires,

Hides all that passed from view; Vainly the prophet's heart aspires,

It hides the future too; And the England of our slow-paced sires

Is thought upon by few.

Yet man lives not hy bread alone,

How shall he live by gold ?
The answer comes in a sudden moan

Of sickness, hunger, and cold;
And, lo! the seed of a new life sown

In the ruins of the old !

The human heart, which seemed so dead,

Wakes with a sudden start;
To right and left we hear it said,

“Nay; 't is a noble heart,” And the angels whisper overhead,

There's a new shrine in the mart!”