66

Laugh and play, O lisping waters,

Lull our downy sons and daughters;

Come O wind, and rock their leafy cradle in thy wanderings coy ;

When they wake we'll end the measure
With a wild sweet cry of pleasure,

And a 'Hey down derry, let's be merry! little girl and boy!" "

J. INGELOW

100.-A VIGIL IN THE EAST

SLEEP, love, sleep!

The dusty day is done.

Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep

Wide over groves of balm,

Down from the towering palm

In at the open casement cooling run,

And round thy lowly bed

Thy bed of pain,

Bathing thy patient head

Like grateful showers of rain

They come ;

While the thick curtains, waving to and fro,

Fan the sick air

And pityingly the shadows come and go

With gentle human care

Compassionate and dumb.

The dusty day is gone,
The night begun :

While prayerful watch I keep,
Sleep, love, sleep!

Is there no magic in the touch

of fingers thou dost love so much?

Fain would they scatter poppies o'er thee now,

Or, with a soft caress,

The tremulous lip its own nepenthe press

Upon the weary lid and aching brow,

While prayerful watch I keep,

Sleep, love, sleep!

On the pagoda spire

The bells are swinging

Their little golden circles in a flutter,

With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter, Till all are ringing

As if a choir

Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing; And with a lulling sound

The music floats around

And drops like balm into the drowsy ear;
Commingling with the hum

Of the sepoy's distant drum,
And lazy beetle ever droning near,
Sounds these of deepest silence born
Like night made visible by morn;

So silent, that I sometimes start
To hear the throbbings of my heart,
And watch, with shivering sense of pain
To see thy pale lids lift again.

The lizard, with his mouse-like eyes

Peeps from the mortise with surprise

At such strange quiet after day's harsh din ;
Then ventures boldly out

And looks about,

And with his hollow feet
Treads his small evening beat,
Darting upon his prey

In such a tricksy winsome sort of way,
His delicate marauding seems no sin.
And still the curtains swing

But noiselessly;

The bells a melancholy murmur ring,

As tears were in the sky;

More heavily the shadows fall

Like the black foldings of a pall

Where juts the rough beam from the wall;

The candles flare

With fresher gusts of air;

The beetle's drone

Turns to a dirge-like solitary moan;

Night deepens, and I sit in cheerless doubt

alone.

E. JUDSON

IOI. SONNETS

I

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not :-Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

II

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men:
O raise us up! return to us again ;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

ні

It is not to be thought of that the flood
Of British freedom, which to the open sea
Of the world's praise from dark antiquity

Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters, unwithstood,"
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,

That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible knights of old:

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakspeare spake; the faith and morals

hold

Which Milton held.-In everything we are sprung Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold.

W. WORDSWORTH

102. SIR DAVID GRÆME

THE dow1 flew east, the dow flew west,
The dow flew far ayont the fell;
And sair at e'en she seemed distrest,
But what perplexed her could not tell.

But aye she coo'd wi' mournfu' croon,
An' ruffled a' her feathers fair;
And lookit sad as she war boun
To leave the land for evermair.

The lady wept, and some did blame :
She did not blame the bonnie dow.
But sair she blamed Sir David Græme,
Because the knight had broke his vow.

For he had sworn by the stars sae bright,
And by their tryst on the dewy green,
To meet her there on St. Lambert's night,2
Whatever dangers lay between ;

To risk his fortune and his life

In bearing her frae her father's towers; To gie her a' the lands of Dryfe,

An' the Enzie-holm wi' its bonnie bowers.

1 Dove.

2 September 17.