AN INVITATION.

Proud ships upon its bosom ride,
It throbs with busy oars;
It grows more nobly satisfied,
Between its widening shores;

It gathers strength and majesty,
Yet flows with rhythmic ease;
And the great gladness of the sea
Completes its garnered peace.

Oh, better far to feel the flow
Of inward peace like this,
Than some brief ecstasy to know,
Some swift unfruitful bliss!

Better?-dear Peace, thou art the best!
For where thou hast thy home,
Full grows the silence, deep the rest,
And Joy herself shall come!

65

AN INVITATION.

LADIES in silks and laces,
Lunching with lips agleam,

Know you aught of the places,
Yielding such fruit and cream.

South from your harbour-islands
Glisten the Monmouth hills;
There are the ocean highlands,
Lowland meadows and rills.

E

Berries in field and garden,
Trees with their fruitage low,
Maidens (asking your pardon)
Handsome as cities show.

Know you that, night and morning,
A beautiful water-fay,
Covered with strange adorning,
Crosses your rippling bay?

Her sides are white and sparkling;
She whistles to the shore;
Behind her hair is darkling,
And the waters part before.

Lightly the waves she measures
Up to the wharves of the town,
There, unlading her treasures,
Lovingly puts them down.

Come with me, ladies, cluster

Here on the western pier;

Look at her jewels' lustre

Changed with the changing year!

First of the months to woo her,

June his strawberries flings

Over her sweet garniture,

Bringing her exquisite things.

Rifling his richest casket ;

Handing her, everywhere, Garnets in crate and basket;

Knowing she soon will wear

* Nausicaa was the daughter of Alcinous, King of Phoecia in Greece. Ulysses is represented as having been cast on the shore of that island in the

LITTLE AILIE'S PET.

Driven the kine to pastures new,
Or washed her linen by the stream,
And at eve her maidens fair,

Would come in train, like painter's dream :

Softly wending with their burdens

Near her car-their washing done--
Fairest dream of Homer's fancy,
Which my fancy dotes upon.

Little Ailie dreams and wonders,
How the daughter of a king

Could "keep her place" among the workers,
Yet attend to lowly thing.

She believes that what was favoured
By the child of Alcinous,
Cannot injure aught that's worthy
In an English country-house.

So she dons a milkmaid's bonnet,
Forth at early morn does fare,
Ministers to calfie's claims

In everything the proper share.

69

course of his long wanderings after the siege of Troy, as these are described by the great Greek poet, Homer, in his poem called The Odyssey. Nausicaa was actually engaged in washing linen at the stream with her maidens, when Ulysses discovered himself to them. Nausicaa did not fly from the stranger like her maidens, but stood and listened to what he had to say, then, perceiving that he was a hero, had him clothed and bathed, and conducted him home where she introduced him to her father; and their entertainment of Ulysses, his conversations with Alcinous, and recital of his adventures, form the theme of succeeding books in Homer's famous poem.