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69.-A DREAM.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

[Mr. Allingham, one of our sweetest and most successful poets, is a native of Ireland, and is a resident of Ballyshannon, his native town. His "Day and Night Songs" were published in 1854, and his "Music Master, and other Poems," 1855.]

I HEARD the dogs howl in the moonlight night,
And I went to the window to see the sight;
All the dead that ever I knew

Going one by one and two by two.

On they pass'd, and on they pass'd;
Townsfellows all from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
And quench'd in the heavy shadow again.
Schoolmates, marching as when we play'd
At soldiers once-but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown'd, I knew, in the awful sea.

Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak too;
And some that I loved, and gasp'd to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
And some that I had not known were dead.

A long, long crowd-where each seem'd lonely,
And yet of them all there was one, one only,
That rais'd a head or look'd my way;

And she seemed to linger, but might not stay.

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah, mother dear, might I only place

My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

On, on, a moving bridge they made

Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;

Many long-forgot, but remember'd then.

And first there came a bitter laughter;
And a sound of tears a moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recal it if I may.

70.-TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.

GERALD MASSEY.

[Mr. Massey was born at Tring, 1828, his father being a canal boatman, earning the humble wages of ten shillings a week. The youthful Gerald was employed in a silk-mill, and afterwards became a straw-plaiter. At the age of fifteen he had read but few books, and came to London as an errand boy. Here he read all the books that came in his way, and before he was eighteen he had taken to making verses. In 1853 he published his "Babe Christabel, and other Lyrical Poems," and the critics and reading public hailed him as a new poet. Mr. Massey is now identified with the daily press, and holds an acknowledged position.]

HIGH hopes that burn'd like stars sublime,

Go down i' the heavens of freedom;

And true hearts perish in the time

We bitterliest need 'em!

But never sit we down and say

There's nothing left but sorrow;
We walk the wilderness to-day-
The promised land to-morrow!
Our birds of song are silent now,
There are no flowers blooming,
Yet life holds in the frozen bough,
And freedom's spring is coming;
And freedom's tide comes up alway,
Though we may strand in sorrow:
And our good bark aground to-day,
Shall float again to-morrow.

Through all the long, long night of years
The people's cry ascendeth,

And earth is wet with blood and tears:

But our meek sufferance endeth!

The few shall not for ever sway—
The many moil in sorrow;

The powers of hell are strong to-day,
But Christ shall rise to-morrow!

Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes

With smiling futures glisten!

For lo! our day bursts up the skies
Lean out your souls and listen!

The world rolls freedom's radiant way,

And ripens with her sorrow;

Keep heart! who bear the Cross to-day,
Shall wear the Crown to-morrow!

O youth! flame-earnest, still aspire
With energies immortal!

To many a heaven of desire

Our yearning opes a portal ;

And though age wearies by the way,
And hearts break in the furrow-
We'll sow the golden grain to-day-
The harvest reap to-morrow!

Build up heroic lives, and all
Be like a sheathen sabre,
Ready to flash out at God's call-
O chivalry of labour !

Triumph and toil are twins; and ay

Joy suns the cloud of sorrow,
And 'tis the martyrdom to-day

Brings victory to-morrow!

71.—THE LUTIST AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

JOHN FORD.

[John Ford was a contemporary dramatist with Massinger, and displayed the same taste and feeling. He was born in 1586, of a good Devonshire family, and supported himself by the profession of the law, not relying wholly on dramatic literature for a living. His first plays were produced in partnership with Webster, Decker, and Rowley-the first, entirely his own, "The Lover's Melancholy," in 1628, and the others, "Brother and Sister," "The Broken Heart," "Love's Sacrifice," "Perkin Warbeck," "Fancies, Chaste and Noble," and "The Lady's Trial," at intervals down to 1639, about which time he is supposed to have died suddenly.]

PASSING from Italy to Greece, the tales
Which poets of an elder time have feign'd
To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting Paradise.

To Thessaly I came, and living private,

Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encounter'd me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather
Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute
With strains of strange variety and harmony
Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent
Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too
A nightingale,

Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes

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The Sands of Dee.

The challenge; and for every several strain

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down.
He could not run divisions with more art

Upon his quaking instrument than she,

The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to.

Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird,

Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, nor notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study

Had busied many hours to perfect practice.

To end the controversy, in a rapture

Upon his instrument he played so swiftly,
So many voluntaries, and so quick,

That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.

The bird (ordain'd to be

Music's first martyr) strove to imitate

These several sounds; which when her warbling throat

Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute,

And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness
To see the conqueror upon her hearse

To weep a funeral elegy of tears.

He look'd upon the trophies of his art,

Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd and cry'd
"Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge

This cruelty upon the author of it.

Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,

Shall never more betray a harmless peace
To an untimely end:" and in that sorrow,
As he was pashing it against a tree,
I suddenly stept in.

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72.-THE SANDS OF DEE.

REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

[See page 217.]

Он, Mary, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee."

The western wind was wild and dark with foam,

And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand

As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—
A tress of golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair,

Above the nets at sea ?"

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes of Dee.

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea,

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee.

(By permission of Messrs. Macmillan.)

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