The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seem'd to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deed
With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

W. Wordsworth.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES

THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might:
The breath of the moist earth is light
Around its unexpanded buds;

Like many a voice of one delight—

The winds', the birds', the ocean-floods'-
The city's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

I see the deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple sea-weeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore

Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone;

The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content, surpassing wealth,
The sage in meditation found,

And walk'd with inward glory crown'd-
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;
Others I see whom these surround-

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild

Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,-
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

P. B. Shelley.

A DREAM OF THE UNKNOWN

I DREAM'D that as I wander'd by the way
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,

When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd May, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold, Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with

white,

And starry river-buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours
Within my hand,-and then, elate and gay,
I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come
That I might there present it-O! to Whom?
P. B. Shelley.

HAPPY INSENSIBILITY

IN a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them

With a sleety whistle through them, Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;

But with a sweet forgetting
They stay their crystal fretting,

Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passéd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbéd sense to steal it-

Was never said in rhyme.

J. Keats.

DATUR HORA QUIETI

THE SUN upon the lake is low,

The wild birds hush their song, The hills have evening's deepest glow,

Yet Leonard tarries long.

Now all whom varied toil and care

From home and love divide,

In the calm sunset may repair

Each to the loved one's side.

The noble dame, on turret high,
Who waits her gallant knight,
Looks to the western beam to spy
The flash of armour bright.
The village maid, with hand on brow
The level ray to shade,

Upon the footpath watches now

For Colin's darkening plaid.

Now to their mates the wild swans row,

By day they swam apart,

And to the thicket wanders slow

The hind beside the hart.

The woodlark at his partner's side
Twitters his closing song-

All meet whom day and care divide,
But Leonard tarries long!

Sir W. Scott.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet Vision I saw;
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array
Far, far, I had roam'd on a desolate track:
'Twas Autumn,-and sunshine arose on the way

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.