Sang in the wild insanity of glee;

And seemed, in the same lays, Calling his mate and uttering songs of praise.

The golden grasshopper did chirp and sing: The plain bee, busy with her housekeeping,

Kept humming cheerfully upon the wing,
As if she understood
That, with contentment, labor was a good.

To the Creator lift a smiling face,
I saw each creature, in his own best place,
Praising continually his wondrous grace;
As if the best of all

Life's countless blessings was to live at all!

So with a book of sermons, plain and true, Hid in my heart, where I might turn them through,

I went home softly, through the falling dew,

Still listening, rapt and calm, To Nature giving out her evening psalm.

While, far along the west, mine eyes discerned,

Where, lit by God, the fires of sunset burned,

The tree-tops, unconsumed, to flame were turned;

And I, in that great hush, Talked with His angels in each burning bush!

O LAND, of every land the best,—
O Land, whose glory shall increase;
Now in your whitest raiment drest
For the great festival of peace:

Take from your flag its fold of gloom, And let it float undimmed above, Till over all our vales shall bloom The sacred colors that we love.

On mountain high, in valley low,
Set Freedom's living fires to burn;
Until the midnight sky shall show

A redder glory than the morn.

Welcome, with shouts of joy and pride, Your veterans from the war-path's track;

You gave your boys, untrained, untried; You bring them men and heroes back!

And shed no tear, though think you must With sorrow of the martyred band; Not even for him whose hallowed dust Has made our prairies holy land.

Though by the places where they fell, The places that are sacred ground, Death, like a sullen sentinel,

Paces his everlasting round.

Yet when they set their country free, And gave her traitors fitting doom, They left their last great enemy, Baffled, beside an empty tomb.

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Not there, but risen, redeemed, they go Where all the paths are sweet with flowers;

They fought to give us peace, and lo! They gained a better peace than ours.

SYDNEY DOBELL.

KEITH OF RAVELSTON.

O HAPPY, happy maid,

In the year of war and death

She wears no sorrow!

By her face so young and fair,

By the happy wreath

That rules her happy hair,

She might be a bride to-morrow!

She sits and sings within her moonlit

bower,

Her moonlit bower in rosy June,
Yet ah, her bridal breath,

Like fragrance from some sweet nightblowing flower,

Moves from her moving lips in many a mournful tune!

She sings no song of love's despair,
She sings no lover lowly laid,
No fond peculiar grief

Has ever touched or bud or leaf
Of her unblighted spring.

She sings because she needs must sing;
She sings the sorrow of the air
Whereof her voice is made.
That night in Britain howsoe'er
They gave the notes of care.
On any chords the fingers strayed
Long since in some pale shade
A dim sad legend old
Of some far twilight told,
She knows not when or where,
She sings, with trembling hand on trem-
bling lute-strings laid :-

The murmur of the mourning ghost
That keeps the shadowy kine,
"O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!"

Ravelston, Ravelston,

The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And through the silver meeds;

Ravelston, Ravelston,

The stile beneath the tree,

The maid that kept her mother's kine,
The song that sang she!

She sang her song, she kept her kine,
She sat beneath the thorn
When Andrew Keith of Ravelston

Rode through the Monday morn ;

His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring, His belted jewels shine!

O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

Year after year, where Andrew came,

Comes evening down the glade,
And still there sits a moonshine ghost
Where sat the sunshine maid.

Her misty hair is faint and fair,
She keeps the shadowy kine;
O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

I lay my hand upon the stile,
The stile is lone and cold,
The burnie that goes babbling by
Says naught that can be told.

Yet, stranger! here, from year to year,
She keeps her shadowy kine;

O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

Step out three steps, where Andrew stood:
Why blanch thy cheeks for fear?
The ancient stile is not alone,

"T is not the burn I hear!

She makes her immemorial moan, She keeps her shadowy kine;

O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

THOMAS BURBIDGE.

EVENTIDE.

COMES Something down with eventide,
Beside the sunset's golden bars,
Beside the floating scents, beside
The twinkling shadows of the stars.

Upon the river's rippling face,
Flash after flash the white

Broke up in many a shallow place;
The rest was soft and bright.

By chance my eye fell on the stream;
How many a marvellous power
Sleeps in us, - sleeps, and doth not
dream!

This knew I in that hour.

For then my heart, so full of strife,
No more was in me stirred;
My life was in the river's life,
And I nor saw nor heard.

I and the river, we were one: The shade beneath the bank, I felt it cool; the setting sun Into my spirit sank.

A rushing thing in power serene
I was; the mystery

I felt of having ever been
And being still to be.

Was it a moment or an hour?
I knew not; but I mourned
When, from that realm of awful power
I to these fields returned.

ROSE TERRY COOKE.

[U. S. A.]

THE ICONOCLAST.

A THOUSAND years shall come and go,
A thousand years of night and day,
And man, through all their changing
show,

His tragic drama still shall play.

Ruled by some fond ideal's power,
Cheated by passion or despair,
Still shall he waste life's trembling hour,
In worship vain, and useless prayer.

Ah! where are they who rose in might,

Who fired the temple and the shrine, And hurled, through earth's chaotic night, The helpless gods it deemed divine?

Cease, longing soul, thy vain desire!

What idol, in its stainless prime, But falls, untouched of axe or fire, Before the steady eyes of Time?

259

So the wild wind strews its perfumed

caresses,

Evil and thankless the desert it blesses, Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses, Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses?

What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweetest is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling.

Almost the day of thy giving is over; Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover,

Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover.

What shall thy longing avail in the

grave?

Give as the heart gives whose fetters are breaking,

Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking.

Soon, heaven's river thy soul-fever slaking,

Thou shalt know God and the gift that he gave.

LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

[U. S. A., 1791-1865.]

INDIAN NAMES.

YE say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave;
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
That mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter's shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.

'Tis where Ontario's billow
Like ocean's surge is curled,

Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world.
Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tribute from the West,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps,
On green Virginia's breast.

Ye say their cone-like cabins,

That clustered o'er the vale,
Have fled away like withered leaves
Before the autumn gale;

But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.

Old Massachusetts wears it
Upon her lordly crown,

And broad Ohio bears it

Amid his young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it

Where her quiet foliage waves;
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.

Wachusett hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust;

Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.

Ye call these red-browed brethren
The insects of an hour,

Crushed like the noteless worm amid

The regions of their power;

Ye drive them from their fathers' lands, Ye break of faith the seal,

But can ye from the court of Heaven Exclude their last appeal?

Ye see their unresisting tribes,
With toilsome step and slow,
On through the trackless desert pass,
A caravan of woe;

Think ye the Eternal Ear is deaf?
His sleepless vision dim?
Think ye the soul's blood may not cry
From that far land to him?

WILLIAM H. FURNESS.

[U. s. A.]

ETERNAL LIGHT.

SLOWLY, by God's hand unfurled,
Down around the weary world,
Falls the darkness; O, how still
Is the working of his will!

Mighty Spirit, ever nigh,
Work in me as silently;
Veil the day's distracting sights,
Show me heaven's eternal lights.

Living stars to view be brought
In the boundless realms of thought;
High and infinite desires,
Flaming like those upper fires.

Holy Truth, Eternal Right,
Let them break upon my sight;
Let them shine serene and still,
And with light my being fill.

JAMES T. FIELDS.

[U. s. A.]

WORDSWORTH.

THE grass hung wet on Rydal banks, The golden day with pearls adorning, When side by side with him we walked To meet midway the summer morning.

The west-wind took a softer breath, The sun himself seemed brighter shining,