She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed RICHARD CRASHAW, Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and desperation, Depth of pains, and height of passion Notes that wing their heavenly ways Orpheus could lead the savage race; And trees uprooted left their place, Sequacious of the lyre; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher; A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, 1687. When to her organ vocal breath was given, FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began ; When Nature underneath a heap And could not heave her head, Then cold and hot, and moist and dry, What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Within the hollow of that shell, The trumpet's loud clangor And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat! The soft complaining flute The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. An angel heard, and straight appeared Mistaking earth for heaven. FROM "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE," ACT V. SC. 1. LORENZO. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, But in his motion like an angel sings, JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. LOR. The reason is your spirits are attentive. Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stoues, and floods; FROM "NIGHT THOUGHTS," NIGHT 1. How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, Where'er the red gold glows, the spice-trees wave, Where the rich diamond ripens, mid the flame Of vertic suns that ope the stranger's grave, He with bronzed cheek and daring step doth rove; He, with short pang and slight, Doth turn him from the checkered light Of the fair moon through his own forests dancing, Where music, joy, and love Were his young hours entrancing; Or fitful wealth allures to roam, There doth he make his home, It is not thus with Woman. The far halls, Though ruinous and lone, Where first her pleased ear drank a nursingmother's tone; The home with humble walls, Where breathed a parent's prayer around her bed; The valley where, with playmates true, She culled the strawberry, bright with dew; The bower where Love her timid footsteps led; The hearthstone where her children grew; The damp soil where she cast The flower-seeds of her hope, and saw them bide the blast, Affection with unfading tint recalls, Where every rose hath in its cup a bee, Making fresh honey of remembered things, Each rose without a thorn, each bee bereft of stings. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. WOMAN. THERE in the fane a beauteous creature stands, Triumphantly distressed! What joy! what dread! Whose teeth like pearls, whose lips like cherries, Alternately transported and alarmed! What can preserve my life? or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there. show, And fawn-like eyes still tremble as they glow. From the Sanskrit of CALIDASA, Cease, cease, Ellen, my little one, Warbling so fairily close to my ear; Why should you choose, of all songs that are haunting me, This that I made for your mother to hear? Hush, hush, Ellen, my little one, Why should I think of her tears, that might Love that had made life, and sorrow that mars? Sleep, sleep, Ellen, my little one! Is she not like her whenever she stirs ? Has she not eyes that will soon be as bright to me, Yes, yes, Ellen, my little one, Though her white bosom is stilled in the grave, to me, Something to cling to and something to crave. Love, love, Ellen, my little one! With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Love through all deeps of her spirit lies bared For man is man and master of his fate. "O stay," the maiden said, "and rest "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche !" This was the peasant's last good-night : At break of day, as heavenward A voice cried, through the startled air, A traveller, by the faithful hound, There in the twilight cold and gray, Excelsior! HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. A RIDDLE.* THE LETTER "H." "T WAS in heaven pronounced, and 't was muttered in hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell; 'T will be found in the sphere when 't is riven asunder, Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder. Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam, Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned. 'T will not soften the heart; but though deaf be the ear, It will make it acutely and instantly hear. A TRAVELLER through a dusty road strewed In this the lust, in that the avarice, acorns on the lea; And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree. Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice. In this one passion man can strength enjoy, Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breathe As fits give vigor just when they destroy. its early vows; Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, And age was pleased, in heats of noon, to bask Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. beneath its boughs; Consistent in our follies and our sins, The dormouse loved its dangling twigs, the birds Here honest Nature ends as she begins. sweet music bore; It stood a glory in its place, a blessing evermore. A little spring had lost its way amid the grass and fern, A passing stranger scooped a well, where weary men might turn; He walled it in, and hung with care a ladle at the brink; He thought not of the deed he did, but judged that toil might drink. He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried, Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, and saved a life beside. A dreamer dropped a random thought; 't was old, and yet 't was new; A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being Old politicians chew on wisdom past, Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate. The doctor, called, declares all help too late. "Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul ! Is there no hope? - Alas!-then bring the jowl." The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. "Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint provoke," 66 Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke ; 'No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace One would not, sure, be frightful when one's Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face : dead, And Betty - give this cheek a little red.” The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined An humble servant to all human-kind, Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, "If where I'm going-I could serve you, sir?" "I give and I devise" (old Euclio said, And sighed) "my lands and tenements to Ned." Your money, sir? "My money, sir! what, all? Why-if I must " (then wept)—“I give it Paul." |