Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnish'd length of wavy beam,
In an eel-like, spiral line below;
The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid,
And naught is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katydid;

And the plaint of the wailing whippowil,
Who moans unseen and ceaseless sings,
Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow.

"Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well,
She has counted them all with click and stroke,
Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak,

And he has awaken'd the sentry elve,

Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,

To bid him ring the hour of twelve,

And call the fays to their revelry.

Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell

('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell)— "Midnight comes, and all is well!

Hither, hither, wing your way!

"Tis the dawn of the fairy day."

They come from beds of lichen green,

They creep from the mullein's velvet screen;

Some on the backs of beetles fly,

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,

Where they swung in their cobweb-hammocks high,

And rock'd about in the evening breeze;

Some from the hum-bird's downy nest

They had driven him out by elfin power,

And, pillow'd on plumes of his rainbow breast.

Had slumber'd there till the charmed hour;

Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,

With glittering ising-stars inlaid;

And some had open'd the four-o'clock,

FAIRIES.

And stole within its purple shade.

And now they throng the moonlight glade. Above-below-on every side,

Their little minim forms array'd

In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, 1795-1820.

THERE

XVII.

Medley.

OF BEAUTY.

HERE is beauty in the rolling clouds, and placid shingle beach,
In feathery snows and whistling winds, and dim electric skies;
There is beauty in the rounded woods dank with heavy foliage,
In laughing fields and dented hills, the valley and its lake;

There is beauty in the gullies, beauty on the cliffs, beauty in sun and shade,

In rocks and rivers, seas and plains the earth is drowned in beauty!

Beauty coileth with the water-snake, and is cradled in the shrew-mouse's

nest;

She flitteth out with evening bats, and the soft mole hid her in his tunnel;

The limpet is encamped upon the shore, and beauty not a stranger to

his tent;

The silvery dace and golden carp thread the rushes with her.

She saileth into clouds with an eagle, she fluttereth into tulips with a humming-bird;

The pasturing kine are of her company, and she prowleth with the

leopard in his jungle.

MARTIN F. TUPPER.

FRAGMENT.

Thy walks are ever pleasant; every scene
Is rich in beauty, lively, or serene-

Rich is that varied view with woods around,
Seen from the seat, within the shrubb'ry bound;
Where shines the distant lake, and where appear,
From ruins bolting, unmolested deer;

Lively-the village-green, the inn, the place,
Where the good widow schools her infant race.
Shops, whence are heard the hammer and the saw,
And village-pleasures unreproved by law.
Then how serene, when in your favorite room,
Gales from your jasmines soothe the evening gloom;
And when from upland paddock you look down.
And just perceive the smoke which hides the town;
When weary peasants at the close of day
Walk to their cots, and part upon the way;

When cattle slowly cross the shallow brook,

And shepherds pen their folds, and rest upon their crook.

GEO. CRABBE, 1754-1832.

THE MEMORY OF A WALK.

I have taken, since you went away, many of the walks which we have taken together; and none of them, I believe, without thoughts of you. I have, though not a good memory in general, yet a good local memory, and can recollect, by the help of a tree or a stile, what you said on that particular spot. For this reason I purpose, when the summer is come, to walk with a book in my pocket; what I read at my fireside I forget, but what I read under a hedge or at the side of a pond, that pond and that hedge will always bring to remembrance; and this is a sort of memoria technica which I would recommend to you, if I did not know that you have no occasion for it.

W. CowPER.-Letter to S. Rose, Esq., Jan. 19, 1789.

A BOWER.

In the pleasant orchard closes,

"God bless all our gains," say we;

But, "May God bless all our losses,"

Better suits with our degree.

Listen, gentle—ay, and simple !—Listen, children, on the kine!

Green the land is where my daily
Steps in jocund childhood played-
Dimpled close with hill and valley,
Dappled very close with shade;

Summer-snow of apple-blossoms, running up from glade to glade.

There is one hill I see nearer

In my vision of the rest;

And a little wood seems clearer,

As it climbeth from the west,

Sideway from the tree-locked valley to the airy upland crest.

Small the wood is, green with hazels,

And, completing the ascent,

Where the wind blows and sun dazzles,

Thrills, in leafy tremblement,

Like a heart that after climbing beateth quickly through content.

Not a step the wood advances

O'er the open hill-top's bound;

There in green arrest the branches

See their image on the ground:

You may walk beneath them smiling, glad with sight and glad with sound.

For you hearken on your right hand

How the birds do leap and call

In the greenwood, out of sight and

Out of reach and fear of all,

And the squirrels crack the filberts, through their cheerful madrigal.

On your left the sheep are cropping
The slant grass and daisies pale:
And fine apple-trees stand dropping
Separate shadows toward the vale.

Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their "All hail!"

Far out, kindled by each other.

Shining hills on hills arise;

Close as brother leans to brother.

When they press beneath the eyes

Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of paradise.

While beyond, above them mounte1,

And above their woods also,

Malvern hills, for mountains cau

Not unduly, loom a row

Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions, through t

ne and the snow.