Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we, That hear the question of that voice sublime? O, what are all the notes that ever rung From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side? Yea, what is all the riot man can make In his short life, to thy unceasing roar? And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far Above its loftiest mountains? a light wave, That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.
DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.
"How does the water
Come down at Lodore ?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time ;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 't was in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing ;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering ;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dan-
cing,
FROM "THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS."
KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the
turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever
shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl in her bloom? perfume, Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; In color though varied, in beauty may vie, Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye; And flapping and rapping and clapping and slap-T is the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and
clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have
Sun,
O, wild as the accents of lover's farewell
Are the hearts which they bear and the tales
which they tell!
WHICH is the wind that brings the cold?
The north-wind, Freddy, and all the snow;
And the sheep will scamper into the fold
When the north begins to blow.
Which is the wind that brings the heat?
The south-wind, Katy; and corn will grow,
And peaches redden for you to eat,
When the south begins to blow.
Which is the wind that brings the rain?
The east-wind, Arty; and farmers know
That cows come shivering up the lane
When the east begins to blow.
Which is the wind that brings the flowers?
The west-wind, Bessy; and soft and low
The birdies sing in the summer hours
When the west begins to blow.
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
FROM "PARADISE AND THE PERI."
Now, upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon,
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.
To one who looked from upper air
O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls;
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam
Of the warm west,
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
The unclouded skies of Peristan !
And then, the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,
Banqueting through the flowery vales ;
And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine,
And woods, so full of nightingales !
When the east is as warm as the light of first hopes,
And day, with its banner of radiance unfurled, Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes,
Sublime, from that valley of bliss to the world!
FROM THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM.”
WHO has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere,
With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,
Its temples, and grottoes, and fountains as clear
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their
O, to see it at sunset, when warm o'er the lake
Its splendor at parting a summer eve throws,
Like a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to
take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she
goes!
When the shrines through the foliage are gleaming half shown,
THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man
learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them, -ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
| And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
And each hallows the hour by some rites of its Only among the crowd, and under roofs
Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells, Here the Magian his urn full of perfume is swinging,
And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing.
That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn, thrice happy if it find
Acceptance in his ear.
Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
Or to see it by moonlight, when mellowly Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look shines
The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines; When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars,
Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They in thy sun
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of And shot towards heaven. The century-living
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet
From the cool shining walks where the young
people meet.
Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one
Out of darkness, as they were just born of the
When the spirit of fragrance is up with the day,
From his harem of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind, full of wantonness, woos like a
lover
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till at last they stood,
As now they stand, massy and tall and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here, thou
fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summit of these trees
The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over; In music; thou art in the cooler breath
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