THE NIGHT-WIND

'Now I can tell by thine altered cheek,
And by thine eyes' full gaze,

And by the words thou scarce dost speak,
How wildly fancy plays.

'Yes-I could swear that glorious wind
Has swept the world aside,

Has dashed its memory from thy mind
Like foam-bells from the tide :

· And thou art now a spirit pouring
Thy presence into all :

The thunder of the tempest's roaring,
The whisper of its fall:

· An universal influence,

From thine own influence free; A principle of life—intense—

Lost to mortality.

'Thus truly, when that breast is cold,
Thy prisoned soul shall rise;
The dungeon mingle with the mould—

The captive with the skies.

Nature's deep being, thine shall hold,

Her spirit all thy spirit fold,

Her breath absorb thy sighs.

Mortal! though soon life's tale is told,

Who once lives, never dies!'

EMILY BRONTË.

Song

BRING from the craggy haunts of birch and pine,

Thou wild wind, bring

Keen forest odours from that realm of thine,
Upon thy wing!

O wind, O mighty, melancholy wind,
Blow through me, blow!

Thou blowest forgotten things into my mind,
From long ago.

OL

JOHN TODHUnter.

Morning-Land

LD English songs, you bring to me
A simple sweetness somewhat kin
To birds that through the mystery
Of earliest morn made tuneful din,
While hamlet steeples sleepily

At cock-crow chime out three and four,
Till maids get up betime and go,
With faces like the red sun low,

Clattering about the dairy floor.

SIEGFRIED Sassoon.

"There was a Boy'

THERE was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs

And islands of Winander !—many a time,

At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake

;

"THERE WAS A BOY'

And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,

That they might answer him.—And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale

Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs Upon a slope above the village-school;

And through that church-yard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe that there

A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies!

WILLIAM Wordsworth.

Self-Dependence

EARY of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At the vessel's prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send :

'Ye who from

childhood my

up

have calmed me,

Calm me, ah, compose me to the end.

Ah, once more,' I cried, 'ye stars, ye waters,

On my heart your mighty charm renew:

Still, still let me, as 1 gaze upon you,

Feel my soul becoming vast like you!

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night-air came the answer: 'Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

6

• Unaffrighted by the silence round them, Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

'And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silvered roll;
For alone they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

SELF-DEPENDENCE

'Bounded by themselves, and unobservant
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.'

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry
like thine in my own heart I hear.
'Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery!'

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

ET

To a Skylark

THEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring warbler !-that love-prompted strain
("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain :
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.