42.

The Sweet Singer of Israel.

THEN I tuned my harp,-took off the lilies we twine round its chords

Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide-those sunbeams like swords!

And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one,

So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed

Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's

bed;

And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine

song, when hand

Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. And then, the last song

When the dead man is praised on his journey—“ Bear, bear him along

With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here

To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.

Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!" And then, the glad chaunt

Of the marriage,—first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt

As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.— And then, the great march

Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch

Nought can break; who shall harm them, our friends?— Then, the chorus intoned

As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned.

R. BROWNING.

43.

A Night Revel and a Sunrise.

'MID a throng

Of maids and youths, old men, and matrons staid,
A medley of all tempers, I had passed
The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth,
With din of instruments and shuffling feet,
And glancing forms, and tapers glittering,
And unaimed prattle flying up and down ;
Spirits upon the stretch, and here and there
Slight shocks of young love-liking interspersed,
Whose transient pleasure mounted to the head,
And tingled through the veins. Ere we retired,
The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky
Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse
And open field, through which the pathway wound,
And homeward led my steps. Magnificent
The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious, as e'er I had beheld—in front,
The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn-
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And labourers going forth to till the fields.
Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit.

44.

W. WORDSWORTH.

A Bearer of Evil Tidings.

The horse rushes home from the battlefield, thereby announcing the misfortune of his master.

FAST, fast, with heels wild spurning,

The dark-grey charger fled :

He burst through ranks of fighting men;
He sprang o'er heaps of dead.

F

His bridle far out-streaming,

His flanks all blood and foam,
He sought the southern mountains,
The mountains of his home.
The pass was steep and rugged,

The wolves they howled and whined;
But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass,
And he left the wolves behind.
Through many a startled hamlet
Thundered his flying feet;

He rushed through the gate of Tusculum,
He rushed up the long white street;
He rushed by tower and temple,

And paused not from his race

Till he stood before his master's door
In the stately market-place.

And straightway round him gathered
A pale and trembling crowd,
And when they knew him, cries of rage
Brake forth, and wailing loud:
And women rent their tresses
For their great prince's fall;

And old men girt on their old swords,
And went to man the wall.

45.

LORD MACAULAY.

The Soldier's Dream.

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
We the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
rice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

t from the battle-field's dreadful array,
I had roamed on a desolate track:
umn,-and sunshine arose on the way
Home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore

From my home and my weeping friends never to part; My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart. "Stay-stay with us!-rest!-thou art weary and worn !"And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay ;But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. T. CAMPBELL.

46.

Oliver Basselin.

IN the Valley of the Vire

Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
And beneath the window-sill,
On the stone,

These words alone :
"Oliver Basselin lived here."

Far above it, on the steep,

Ruined stands the old château,

Nothing but the donjon-keep
Left for shelter or for show.
Its vacant eyes

Stare at the skies,

Stare at the valley green and deep.
Once a convent, old and brown

Looked-but ah! it looks no more,
From the neighbouring hillside down
On the rushing and the roar
Of the stream
Whose sunny gleam

Cheers the little Norman town.

In that darksome mill of stone,
To the water's dash and din,
Careless, humble, and unknown,
Sang the poet Basselin

Never feeling of unrest

Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed; Only made to be bis best.

All the lovely valley seemed;

No destre

Of soaring higher

Stirred or fluttered in his breast.

True, his songs were not divine;
Were not songs of that high art,
Which, as winds do in the pine,
Find an answer in each heart
t;
But the mirth

Of this green earth

Laughed and revelled in his line.

From the alehouse and the inn,
Opening on the narrow street,
Came the loud convivial din,
Singing and applause of feet,
The laughing lays

That in those days

Sang the poet Basselin.

In the castle, cased in steel,

Knights, who fought at Agincourt,'
Watched and waited, spur on heel;
But the poet sang for sport
Songs that rang

Another clang,

Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.

In the convent, clad in gray,
Sat the monks in lonely cells,
Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,
And the poet heard their bells;
But his rhymes

Found other chimes.

Newer to the earth than they.

Pgh the French in 1415