A

THE LATTICE AT SUNRISE.

S on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed,
I saw my lattice prankt upon the wall,
The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal,
A sunny phantom interlaced with shade ;
"Thanks be to heaven," in happy mood I said,
"What sweeter aid my matins could befall
Than this fair glory from the East hath made?
What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all,
To bid us feel and see! We are not free
To say we see not, for the glory comes
Nightly and daily, like the flowing sea;

His lustre pierceth through the midnight glooms;
And, at prime hour, behold! He follows me
With golden shadows to my secret rooms!

CHARLES TURNER.

A SUMMER NIGHT.

PLAINNESS and clearness without shadow of

stain !

Clearness divine!

Ye Heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and though so great, Are yet untroubled and unpassionate:

Who though so noble share in the world's toil,

And though so task'd keep free from dust and soil:

I will not say that your mild deeps retain
A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain ;
But I will rather say that you remain

A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency.

How it were good to sink there, and breathe free.
How fair a lot to fill

Is left to each man still.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

WHI

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

2

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, -

The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil snall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall ben 1,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone

Will lead my steps aright.

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

THE SANDPIPER.

ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I,

And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered drift-wood, bleached and dry.

The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud, black and swift, across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white light-houses high. Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,
One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry ;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Nor flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong,

He scans me with a fearless eye;
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night,
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My drift-wood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

CELIA THEXTER.

O

HYMN OF A HERMIT.

UNSEEN Spirit! now a calm divine

Comes forth from Thee, rejoicing earth and
air!

Trees, hills, and houses, all distinctly shine,
And Thy great ocean slumbers everywhere.

The mountain ridge against the purple sky
Stands clear and strong with darkened rocks and
dells,

And cloudless brightness opens wide on high
A home aerial, where Thy presence dwells.

The chime of bells remote, the murmuring sea,

The song of birds in whispering copse and wood, The distant voice of children's thoughtless glee, And maiden's song, are all one voice of good.

Amid the leaves' green mass a sunny play

Of flash, and shadow, stirs like inward life; The ship's white sail glides onward far away, Unhaunted by a thought of storm or strife.

Upon the narrow bridge of foot-worn plank,
The peasant stops where swift the waters gleam,
And broods as if his heart in silence drank

More freshing draughts than that untainted stream.