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Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone,
Telling of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers,
Or gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found,
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavoury or unclean,
Hath my insect never seen,
But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple sap and daffodels,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catch-fly, adder's-tongue,
And briar-roses dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he pass'd.

Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breech'd philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,

Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff and take the wheat.
When the fierce north-western blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep,-
Wo and want thou canst outsleep,-
Want and wo which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

EMERSON.

DISDAIN RETURNED.

HE

E that loves a rosie cheeke,
Or a corall lip admires,

Or from star-like eyes doth seeke
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and stedfast minde,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheekes, or lips, or eyes.

No tears, Celia, now shall win
My resolved hearte to return;
I have search'd thy soul within,
And find nought but pride and scorn;
I have learn'd thy arts, and now

Can disdain as much as thou.

THOMAS CAREW.

W

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

HEN the sheep are in the fauld and the
kye at hame,

And a' the weary warld to sleep are gane,
The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for

his bride;

But saving a crown he had naething else beside. To mak' the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea; And the crown and the pound were baith for me.

He hadna been gane a year and a day,

When my father brake his arm, and our cow was stown away;

My mither she fell sick, and Jamie at the sea;
And Auld Robin Gray cam' a-courting me.

My father couldna' work, and my mither doughtna

spin,

I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna

win;

Auld Rab maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in

his e'e,

Said, "Jenny, for their sakes, O marry me!"

My heart it said na; I look'd for Jamie back; But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;

His ship it was a wrack,-why didna Jenny dee?
O why do I live, to cry, Wae's me!

My father urgit sair, my mither didna speak,
But she lookit in my face till my heart was like to

break.

They gied him my hand, though my heart was at

the sea;

Sae Auld Robin Gray he is gudeman to me.

I hadna been a wife a week but only four,
When sitting sae mournfully ae night at the door,
I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I couldna think it he,
Till he said, "I'm come back, love, to marry thee."

O sair did we greet, and muckle did we say ;
We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves away.
I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee.
O why do I live, to say, Wae's me!

I

gang

like a ghaist, and I carena to spin.

I darena think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin.
But I'll do my best a gude wife to be;
For Auld Robin Gray is kind to me.

LADY ANNE LINDSAY.

A

SONG.

66

[FROM ZAPOLYA."]

SUNNY shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted, And poised therein a bird so bold,— Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted! He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he troll'd mist;

Within that shaft of sunny

His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,

All else of amethyst.

And thus he sang, "Adieu! adieu!
Love's dreams prove seldom true.
The blossoms they make no delay,
The sparkling dewdrops will not stay.
Sweet month of May,

We must away,
Far, far away!

To-day! to-day!"

COLERIDGE.

SONNET.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

(LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE DERWENT,
WORKINGTON.)

D

EAR to the Loves and to the Graces vow'd,
The Queen drew back the wimple that she
wore;

And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hail'd, how touchingly she bow'd!
And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian Seer,
Sigh'd on the wing as her foot press'd the strand,
With step prelusive to a long array

Of woes and degradations hand in hand-
Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear

Still'd by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay.

WORDSWORTH.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT

ROOM.

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*

GIVE me, from this heartless scene released, To hear our old musician, blind and gray, (Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kiss 'd)

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