But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawnA dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A spirit, yet a woman too:

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food-
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Lo! once again our feet we set

On still green wood-paths, twilight wet,
By lonely brooks, whose waters fret

The roots of spectral beeches;
Again the hearth-fire glimmers o'er
Home's whitewashed wall and painted floor,
And young eyes widening to the lore
Of faery-folks and witches.

Dear heart!-the legend is not vain
Which lights that holy hearth again;
And, calling back from care and pain,
And death's funereal sadness,
Draws round its old familiar blaze
The clustering groups of happier days,
And lends to sober manhood's gaze
A glimpse of childish gladness.

And, knowing how my life hath been A weary work of tongue and pen,

677

A long, harsh strife, with strong-willed men, Thou wilt not chide my turning

To con, at times, an idle rhyme,

To pluck a flower from childhood's clime,
Or listen, at life's noonday chime,
For the sweet bells of morning!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

To my Sister,

WITH A COPY OF "SUPERNATURALISM OF NEW

ENGLAND."

DEAR sister! while the wise and sage
Turn coldly from my playful page,
And count it strange that ripened age
Should stoop to boyhood's folly—

I know that thou wilt judge aright
Of all that makes the heart more light,
Or lends one star-gleam to the night
Of clouded melancholy.

Away with weary cares and themes!
Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams!
Leave free once more the land which teems
With wonders and romances!
Where thou, with clear discerning eyes,
Shalt rightly read the truth which lies
Beneath the quaintly-masking guise
Of wild and wizard fancies.

Mother Margery.

On a bleak ridge, from whose granite edges Sloped the rough land to the grisly north; And whose hemlocks, clinging to the ledges, Like a thinned banditti staggered forth— In a crouching, wormy-timbered hamlet Mother Margery shivered in the cold, With a tattered robe of faded camlet

On her shoulders - crooked, weak, and old.

Time on her had done his cruel pleasure;

For her face was very dry and thin, And the records of his growing measure Lined and cross-lined all her shrivelled skin. Scanty goods to her had been allotted,

Yet her thanks rose oftener than desire; While her bony fingers, bent and knotted,

Fed with withered twigs the dying fire.

And many a fount shall there distil, And many a rill refresh the flowers; But wine shall gush in every rill,

And every fount yield milky showers.

Thus-shade of him whom nature taught
To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure-
Who gave to love his warmest thought,
Who gave to love his fondest measure —

Thus, after death if spirits feel,

Thou may'st from odors round thee streaming, A pulse of past enjoyment steal,

And live again in blissful dreaming.

ANTIPATER OF SIDON. (Greek.)

Paraphrase of THOMAS MOORE.

679

And sees the heroic brood of his creation
Teach larger life to his ennobled nation.
O shaping brain! O flashing fancy's hues!
O boundless heart, kept fresh by pity's dews!
O wit humane and blithe! O sense sublime!
For each dim oracle of mantled time!
Transcendant form of man! in whom we read
Mankind's whole tale of impulse, thought, and
deed!

Amid the expanse of years, beholding thee,
We know how vast our world of life may be;
Wherein, perchance, with aims as pure as thine,
Small tasks and strengths may be no less divine.
JOHN STERLING.

Shakespeare.

How little fades from earth when sink to rest The hours and cares that move a great man's breast!

Though nought of all we saw the grave may

spare,

His life pervades the world's impregnate air; Though Shakespeare's dust beneath our footsteps lies,

His spirit breathes amid his native skies;
With meaning won from him for ever glows
Each air that England feels, and star it knows;
His whispered words from many a mother's voice
Can make her sleeping child in dreams rejoice;
And gleams from spheres he first conjoined to
earth

Are blent with rays of each new morning's birth.
Amid the sights and tales of common things,

Leaf, flower, and bird, and wars, and deaths of kings,

Of shore, and sea, and nature's daily round,
Of life that tills, and tombs that load, the ground,
His visions mingle, swell, command, pace by,
And haunt with living presence heart and eye;
And tones from him, by other bosoms caught,
Awaken flush and stir of mounting thought:
And the long sigh, and deep impassioned thrill,
Rouse custom's trance and spur the faltering will.
Above the goodly land, more his than ours,
He sits supreme, enthroned in skyey towers,

PRYTHEE, Willy! tell me this-
What new accident there is
That thou, once the blithest lad,
Art become so wondrous sad,
And so careless of thy quill,
As if thou hadst lost thy skill?
Thou wert wont to charm thy flocks,
And among the massy rocks
Hast so cheered me with thy song
That I have forgot my wrong.
Something hath thee surely crost,
That thy old wont thou hast lost.
Tell me-
- have I aught mis-said,
That hath made thee ill-apaid?
Hath some churl done thee a spite?
Dost thou miss a lamb to-night?
Frowns thy fairest shepherd's lass?
Or how comes this ill to pass?

Is there any discontent

Worse than this my banishment?

WILLY.

Why, doth that so evil seem

That thou nothing worse dost deem ?
Shepherds there full many be
That will change contents with thee;
Those that choose their walks at will,
On the valley or the hill-
Or those pleasures boast of can
Groves or fields may yield to man
Never come to know the rest,
Wherewithal thy mind is blest.
Many a one that oft resorts

To make up the troop at sports,
And in company some while
Happens to strain forth a smile,
Feels more want and outward smart,
And more inward grief of heart,
Than this place can bring to thee,
While thy mind remaineth free.
Thou bewail'st my want of mirth-
But what find'st thou in this earth
Wherein aught may be believed
Worth to make me joy or grieved?
And yet feel I, naitheless,
Part of both I must confess.
Sometime I of mirth do borrow —
Otherwhile as much of sorrow;
But my present state is such
As nor joy nor grieve I much.

PHILARETE.

Why hath Willy then so long
Thus forborne his wonted song?
Wherefore doth he now let fall
His well-tuned pastoral,
And my ears that music bar
Which I more long after far
Than the liberty I want?

WILLY.

That were very much to grant. But doth this hold alway, ladThose that sing not must be sad? Didst thou ever that bird hear Sing well that sings all the year?

Tom the piper doth not play
Till he wears his pipe away-
There's a time to slack the string,
And a time to leave to sing.

PHILARETE.

Yea! but no man now is still
That can sing, or tune a quill.
Now to chaunt it were but reason
Song and music are in season.
Now, in this sweet jolly tide,
Is the earth in all her pride;
The fair lady of the May,
Trimmed up in her best array,
Hath invited all the swains,
With the lasses of the plains,
To attend upon her sport
At the places of resort.
Coridon, with his bold rout,
Hath already been about
For the elder shepherd's dole,
And fetched in the summer-pole;
Whilst the rest have built a bower
To defend them from a shower—
Coiled so close, with boughs all green,
Titan cannot pry between.
Now the dairy wenches dream
Of their strawberries and cream;
And each doth herself advance
To be taken in to dance;
Every one that knows to sing
Fits him for his carolling;
So do those that hope for meed
Either by the pipe or reed;
And, though I am kept away,

I do hear, this very day,

Many learned grooms do wend
For the garlands to contend:
Which a nymph, that hight Desert,
Long a stranger in this part,

With her own fair hand hath wrought-
A rare work, they say, past thought,
As appeareth by the name,

For she calls them wreaths of fame.
She hath set in their due place
Every flower that may grace;
And among a thousand moe,
Whereof some but serve for show,

She hath wove in Daphne's tree,
That they may not blasted be;
Which with time she edged about,
Lest the work should ravel out;
And that it might wither never,
Intermixed it with live-ever.
These are to be shared among
Those that do excel for song,
Or their passions can rehearse

In the smooth'st and sweetest verse.
Then for those among the rest
That can play and pipe the best,
There's a kidling with the dam,
A fat wether and a lamb.
And for those that leapen far,
Wrestle, run, and throw the bar,
There's appointed guerdons too:
He that best the first can do
Shall for his reward be paid
With a sheep-hook, fair inlaid
With fine bone of a strange beast
That men bring out of the west;
For the next a scrip of red,
Tasselled with fine colored thread;
There's prepared for their meed
That in running make most speed.
Or the cunning measures foot,
Cups of turned maple-root,
Whereupon the skilful man
Hath engraved the loves of Pan;
And the last hath for his due
A fine napkin wrought with blue.
Then, my Willy, why art thou
Careless of thy merit now?
What dost thou here, with a wight
That is shut up from delight

In a solitary den,

As not fit to live with men?
Go, my Willy! get thee gone
Leave me in exile alone;

Hie thee to that merry throng,
And amaze them with thy song!
Thou art young, yet such a lay
Never graced the month of May,
As, if they provoke thy skill,
Thou canst fit unto thy quill.
I with wonder heard thee sing

At our last year's revelling.

Then I with the rest was free,
When, unknown, I noted thee,
And perceived the ruder swains
Envy thy far sweeter strains.
Yea, I saw the lasses cling
Round about thee in a ring,
As if each one jealous were
Any but herself should hear;
And I know they yet do long

For the residue of thy song.
Haste thee then to sing it forth;
Take the benefit of worth;
And Desert will sure bequeath
Fame's fair garland for thy wreath.
Hie thee, Willy! hie away.

WILLY.

Phila! rather let me stay,
And be desolate with thee,
Than at those their revels be.
Naught such is my skill, I wis,
As indeed thou deem'st it is;
But whate'er it be, I must
Be content, and shall I trust.
For a song I do not pass

'Mongst my friends; but what, alas!
Should I have to do with them
That my music do contemn?
Some there are, as well I wot,
That the same yet favor not;
Yet I cannot well avow
They my carols disallow;
But such malice I have spied,
'Tis as much as if they did.