Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet The flood must pass, and I behold a mist Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope, Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers Or wander among rainbows, fading soon And reappearing, haply giving place To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear Molds from the idle air; where serpents lift The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth The bony arm in menace. Further on A belt of darkness seems to bar the way, Long, low, and distant, where the Life that Is Touches the Life to Come. The Flood of Years Rolls toward it, near and nearer. It must pass That dismal barrier. What is there beyond? Hear what the wise and good have said.

Beyond

That belt of darkness still the years roll on
More gently, but with not less mighty sweep.
They gather up again and softly bear
All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed
And lost to sight — all that in them was good,
Noble and truly great and worthy of love—

The lives of infants and ingenuous youths,
Sages and saintly women who have made
Their households happy — all are raised and borne
By that great current in its onward sweep,
Wandering and rippling with caressing waves
Around green islands, fragrant with the breath
Of flowers that never wither. So they pass,
From stage to stage, along the shining course
Of that fair river broadening like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way,

They bring old friends together; hands are clasped
In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms
Again are folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now,
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled
Or broke are healed forever. In the room
Of this grief-shadowed Present there shall be
A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw
The heart, and never shall a tender tie
Be broken in whose reign the eternal Change
That waits on growth and action shall proceed
With everlasting Concord hand in hand.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

T lies beside the river, where its marge
Is black with many an old and oarless barge,
And yesty filth and leafage wild and rank
Stagnate and beaten by the crumbling bank.

Once, slow revolving by the industrious mill,
It murmured, - only on the sabbath still;
And evening winds its pulse-like beating bore
Down the soft vale and by the winding shore.
Sparkling around its orbéd motion, flew,
With quick fresh fall, the drops of dashing dew;
Through noontide heat that gentle rain was flung,
And verdant, round, the summer herbage sprung.
Now, dancing light and sounding motion cease,
In these dark hours of cold continual peace;

And flung a warm and sunny flush
O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow,
To the coral rocks are hurrying down,
To sleep amid colors as bright as their own.

O, many a dream was in the ship

An hour before her death;

And sights of home with sighs disturbed

The sleeper's long-drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had passed;
And his wife,-by turns she wept and smiled,
As she looked on the father of her child,
Returned to her heart at last.

He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Astounded, the reeling deck he paces,
Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces;
The whole ship's crew are there!
Wailings around and overhead,
Brave spirits stupefied or dead,
And madness and despair.

JOHN WILSON (Christopher North).

ING FRANCIS was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,

And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;

The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,

And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:

De Lorge's love o'erheard the king, a beauteous, lively dame,

With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which alway seemed the same;

She thought, "The count, my lover, is brave as brave can be;

He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;

Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;

They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;

With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another;

Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunder

ous smother;

The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;

Said Francis, then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

divine;

I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine."

She dropped her glove to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;

He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:

The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,

Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.

"By Heaven!" said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat:

"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

LEIGH HUNT.

T

HE old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers rang by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. "Play uppe, play uppe, O, Boston bells!

Play all your changes, all your swells, Play uppe 'The Brides of Enderby.'"

Men say it was a stolen tyde

The Lord that sent it, He knows all; But in myne ears doth stili abide

The message that the bells let fall: And there was naught of strange beside The flight of mews and peewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea-wall.

I sat and spun within my doore,

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies, And dark against day's golden death She moved where Lindis wandereth, My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling Ere the early dews were falling, Farre away, I heard her song. "Cusha! Cusha!" all along; Where the reedy Lindis floweth,

Floweth, floweth,

From the fields where melick groweth Faintly came her milking song

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
"For the dews will soone be falling;
Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips yellow;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,

Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

From the clovers lift your head;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,
Come up Jetty, rise and follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed."

If it be long, ay, long ago,

When I begin to think how long, Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrowe, sharp and strong; And all the aire, it seemeth mee, Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee), That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where full fyve good miles away

The steeple towered from out the greene; And lo! the great bell farre and wide Was heard in all the country side That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where there sedges are
Moved on in sunset's golden breath,
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o'er the grassy sea
Came downe that kindly message free,
The Brides of Mavis Enderby."

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows

To where the goodly vessels lie,

And where the lordly steeple shows, They sayde, "And why should this thing be? What danger lowers by land or sea? They ring the tune of Enderby!

"For evil news from Mablethorpe,

Of pyrate galleys warping down; For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,

They have not spared to wake the towne; But while the west bin red to see,

And storms be none, and pyrates flee,

Why ring The brides of Enderby?"

I looked without, and lo! my sonne

Came riding down with might and main: He raised a shout as he drew on,

Till all the welkin rang again, "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"

(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife Elizabeth.)

“The old sea wall (he cried) is downe, The rising tide comes on apace, And boats adrift in yonder towne

Go sailing uppe the market-place." He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you mother!" strait he saith, “Where is my wife, Elizabeth?”

"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away, With her two bairns, I marked her long; And ere yon bells beganne to play

Afar I heard her milking song.

He looked across the grassy lea.
To right. to left, “Ho Enderby!”
They rang "The Brides of Enderby!"