“That night is near,—and the cheerless tomb

Shall keep thy body in store,
'Till the morn of eternity rise on the gloom,
And night shall be no more !”

ΛΝΟΝ,

SPRING.

The sweet season that bud and bloom forth brings,
With
green

hath clad the hill, and eke the vale ; The nightingale with feathers new she sings ;

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale. Summer is come, for every spray now springs,

The hart has hung his old head on the pale, The buck in brake his winter coat he flings,

The fishes fleet with new-repaired scale; The adder all her slough away she flings,

The swift swallow pursues the fliës small, The busy bee her honey now she mings;

Winter is worn that was the flower's bale. And thus I see, among those pleasant things, Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

EARL OF SURREY.

CORONACH,

He is gone on the mountain,

He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.
The font, re-appearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow; But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow.

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary, But the voice of the weeper

Wails manhood in glory ; The autumn winds rushing

Waft the leaves that are searest, But our flower was in flushing,

When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber, Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber! Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain,

Thou art gone, and for ever.

SCOTT. RETURNING SPRING.

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year ;
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ;
The ants, the bees, the swallows, re-appear ;
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead seasons' bier.
The loving birds now pair in every brake,
And build their mossy homes in field and brere ;

And the green lizard and the golden snake,
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.

Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean,
A quickening life from the earth's heart has burst,
As it has ever done, with change and motion,
From the great morning of the world ! when first
God dawn'd on chaos; in its stream immersed,
The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light;
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst;

Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

SHELLEY.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

I HAVE read, in some old marvellous tale,

Some legend strange and vague, That a midnight host of spectres pale

Beleaguer'd the walls of Prague.

a

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,

With the wan moon overhead, There stood, as in an awful dream,

The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,

The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,

The river flow'd between.

a

No other voice nor sound was there,

No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasp'd the air,

As clouds with clouds embrace.

But, when the old cathedral bell

Proclaim’d the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell

On the alarmèd air.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

141

Down the broad valley fast and far

The troubled army fled ; Uprose the glorious morning star,

The ghastly host was dead.

I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,

That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan

Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamp'd beside Life's rushing stream,

In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleann

Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground

The spectral camp is seen, ,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,

Flows the River of Life between.

of the grave ;

No other voice nor sound is there,
In the

army
No other challenge breaks the air,

But the rushing of Life's wave.

And, when the solemn and deep church-bell

Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,

The shadows sweep away.