Paused awhile to hear.

"What good child is this," the angel said, "That with happy heart beside her bed Prays so lovingly?"

Low and soft, O, very low and soft, Crooned the blackbird in the orchard croft, "Bell, dear Bell!" crooned he.

"Whom God's creatures love," the angel fair Murmured, "God doth bless with angels' care; Child, thy bed shall be

Folded safe from harm. Love, deep and kind, Shall watch around and leave good gifts behind, Little Bell, for thee!"

THOMAS WESTWOOD.

In the little childish heart below
All the sweetness seemed to grow and
And shine forth in happy overflow
From the blue, bright eyes.

grow,

A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS. 'TWAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there : The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should ap-

pear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled and shouted, and called them
by name :

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen !

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and
Blitzen!

To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the

sky,

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of toys, — and St. Nicholas

too.

And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As, on the jag of a mountain crag

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle, alit, one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings;

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

O, IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orbéd maiden with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm river, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch, through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

Or let the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low,
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold,
'Twixt crimson banks; and then a traveller go
From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gor-

geous land!

Or, listening to the tide with closéd sight,
Be that blind Bard, who on the Chian strand,
By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
Beheld the Iliad and the Odysse

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.

THOU still unravished bride of quietness! Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?

What mad pursuit? What struggles to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets forevermore
Will silent be, and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral !

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. JOHN KEATS.

THE SUNKEN CITY.

HARK! the faint bells of the sunken city
Peal once more their wonted evening chime!

From the deep abysses floats a ditty,

Wild and wondrous, of the olden time.

Temples, towers, and domes of many stories There lie buried in an ocean grave, Undescried, save when their golden glories Gleam, at sunset, through the lighted wave.

And the mariner who had seen them glisten,
In whose ears those magic bells do sound,
Night by night bides there to watch and listen,
Though death lurks behind each dark rock
round.

So the bells of memory's wonder-city

Peal for me their old melodious chime; So my heart pours forth a changeful ditty, Sad and pleasant, from the bygone time.

Domes and towers and castles, fancy-builded, There lie lost to daylight's garish beams, There lie hidden till unveiled and gilded, Glory-gilded, by my nightly dreams!

And then hear I music sweet upknelling

From many a well-known phantom band, And, through tears, can see my natural dwelling Far off in the spirit's luminous land!

WILHELM MUELLER (German). Translation of JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN.

THE BOWER OF BLISS.

FROM THE "FAERIE QUEENE."

THERE the most daintie paradise on ground
Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye,

In which all pleasures plenteously abownd,
And none does others happinesse envye;
The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye;
The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing

space;

The trembling groves; the christall running by; And, that which all faire workes doth most

aggrace,

The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place.

One would have thought (so cunningly the rude And scorned partes were mingled with the fine) That Nature had for wantonesse ensude Art, and that Art at Nature did repine; So striving each th' other to undermine, Each did the others worke more beautify; So diff'ring both in willes agreed in fine: So all agreed, through sweete diversity, This gardin to adorne with all variety.

And in the midst of all a fountaine stood, Of richest substance that on earth might bee, So pure and shiny that the silver flood Through every channell running one might see; Most goodly it with curious ymageree Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes, Of which some seemed with lively iollitee To fly about, playing their wanton toyes, Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes.

And over all of purest gold was spred
A trayle of yvie in his native hew;
For the rich metall was so coloured,
That wight, who did not well avis'd it vew,
Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew :
Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,
That, themselves dipping in the silver dew
Their fleecy flowres they fearefully did steepe,
Which drops of christall seemed for wantones to
weep.

Infinit streames continually did well
Out of this fountaine, sweet and faire to see,
The which into an ample laver fell,
And shortly grew to so great quantitie,
That like a little lake it seemd to bee;
Whose depth exceeded not three cubits hight,
That through the waves one might the bottom

see,

All pav'd beneath with iaspar shining bright, That seemd the fountaine in that sea did sayle

upright.