When fire outdoors burns merrily, There the witches are making tea."

And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornéd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicéd elements,

The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.
As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick ;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,

Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree,

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about.
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed,
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

A DROP OF DEW.

SEE how the orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn

Into the blowing roses,

(Yet careless of its mansion new For the clear region where 't was born) Round in itself encloses,

And in its little globe's extent Frames, as it can, its native element.

How it the purple flower does slight,
Scarce touching where it lies;
But gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light,
Like its own tear,
Because so long divided from the sphere;
Restless it rolls, and unsecure,

Trembling, lest it grow impure;
Till the warm sun pities its pain,

And to the skies exhales it back again.

So the soul, that drop, that ray,
Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flower be seen,
Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,
And, recollecting its own light,
Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express
The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away;
So the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day.

Dark beneath, but bright above;
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go!
How girt and ready to ascend!
Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend.
Such did the manna's sacred dew distil,
White and entire, although congealed and chill,
Congealed on earth, but does, dissolving, run
Into the glories of the Almighty sun.

ANDREW MARVELL.

Seeking the food he eats,

And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see

No enemy,

But winter and rough weather.

JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note,
that I made yesterday in despite of my invention.
AMIENS. And I'll sing it.
JAQ. Thus it goes:-

If it do come to pass,
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease,
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame
Here shall he see

Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

AMI. What's that "ducdame"?

JAQ. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.

SHAKESPEARE.

NATURE.

THE bubbling brook doth leap when I come by,
Because my feet find measure with its call;
The birds know when the friend they love is nigh,
For I am known to them, both great and small.
The flower that on the lonely hillside grows
Expects me there when spring its bloom has given;
And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows,
And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven;
For he who with his Maker walks aright,
Shall be their lord as Adam was before;
His ear shall catch each sound with new delight,
Each object wear the dress that then it wore;
And he, as when erect in soul he stood,
Hear from his Father's lips that all is good.

JONES VERY.

And while the maple dish is mine,
The beechen cup, unstained with wine,
I scorn the gay licentious crowd,
Nor heed the toys that deck the proud.

Within my limits, lone and still,
The blackbird pipes in artless trill;
Fast by my couch, congenial guest,
The wren has wove her mossy nest;
From busy scenes and brighter skies,
To lurk with innocence, she flies,
Here hopes in safe repose to dwell,
Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.
At morn I take my customed round,
To mark how buds yon shrubby mound,
And every opening primrose count,
That trimly paints my blooming mount;
Or o'er the sculptures, quaint and rude,
That grace my gloomy solitude,

I teach in winding wreaths to stray
Fantastic ivy's gadding spray.

At

eve, within yon studious nook, I ope my brass-embosséd book, Portrayed with many a holy deed

Of martyrs, crowned with heavenly meed.
Then, as my taper waxes dim,
Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn,
And, at the close, the gleams behold
Of parting wings, be-dropt with gold.
While such pure joys my bliss create,
Who but would smile at guilty state?
Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray;
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage?

THOMAS WARTON.

COME TO THESE SCENES OF PEACE.

COME to these scenes of peace,
Where, to rivers murmuring,
The sweet birds all the summer sing,
Where cares and toil and sadness cease!
Stranger, does thy heart deplore
Friends whom thou wilt see no more!
Does thy wounded spirit prove
Pangs of hopeless, severed love?
Thee the stream that gushes clear,
Thee the birds that carol near,
Shall soothe, as silent thou dost lie
And dream of their wild lullaby;
Come to bless these scenes of peace,
Where cares and toil and sadness cease.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES

COME on, sir; here's the place: stand still.
How fearful

And dizzy 't is, to cast one's eyes so low !
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, — dreadful
trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight; the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. -I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

THE OCEAN.

SONNET.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE ocean at the bidding of the moon Forever changes with his restless tide: Flung shoreward now, to be regathered soon With kingly pauses of reluctant pride,

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots:
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

GRONGAR HILL.

[The Vale of the Towy embraces, in its winding course of fif teen miles, some of the loveliest scenery of South Wales. If it be less cultivated than the Vale of Usk, its woodland views are more romantic and frequent. The neighborhood is historic and poetic ground. From Grongar Hill the eye discovers traces of a Roman Camp; Golden Grove, the home of Jeremy Taylor, is on the opposite side of the river; Merlin's chair recalls Spenser; and a farm-house near the foot of Llangumnor Hill brings back the memory of its once genial occupant, Richard Steele. Spenser places the cave of Merlin among the dark woods of Dinevawr.]

SILENT nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale,

Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse.
Now, while Phœbus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rili,
Sat upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head,

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood, Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,

Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his checkered sides I wind,

And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottos where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal.
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise.
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapors intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.
Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes :
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,

;

The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;
And beyond, the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood:
His sides are clothed with waving wood;
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both, a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.

"T is now the raven's bleak abode ;
'T is now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there fall
Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered wall;
Yet Time has seen that lifts the low

And level lays the lofty brow

Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state.
But transient is the smile of Fate !
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers, how they run
Through woods and meads, in shade and sun
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay
To disperse our cares away.

Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow;
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky;
The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each gives each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges lie;
What streaks of meadow cross the eye!
A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the Future's face,
Eyed through Hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way, -
The present's still a cloudy day.

O, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see;
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul.
"T is thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain turf I lie ;
While the wanton Zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,