I steal by lawns and grassy plots :

I slide by hazel covers ; I move the sweet forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.

And semblance of return. Anon from home
He issues forth anew, high ridged and free, —
The gentlest murmur of his seething foam
Like armies whispering where great echoes be.
0, leave me here upon this beach to rove,
Mute listener to that sound so grand and lone!
A glorious sound, deep drawn, and strongly

thrown,
And reaching those on mountain heights above,
To British ears, (as who shall scorn to own ?)
A tutelar fond voice, a saviour tone of love.

CHARLES TENNYSON.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

Among my skimming swallows i I make the netted sunbeam danco

Against my sandy shallows

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses ;
I linger by my shingly bars ;

I loiter round my cresses ;

SONG OF THE BROOK.

I COME from haunts of coot and hern:

I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

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.

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.

(The Vale of the Towy embraces, in its winding course of fir. 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 mernory of its once genial occupant, Richard Steele. Spenser places the cave of Merlin among the dark woods of Dinevawr.)

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,

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 Phæbus, 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
Sweet!y 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 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.

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,

Such, to my mind, is the philosophy

The young bird teaches, who, with sudden flight, Sails far into the blue that spreads on high,

Until I lose him from my straining sight, — With a most lofty discontent to fly, Upward, from earth to sky.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

We will not see them ; will not go

To-day, nor yet to-morrow; Enough, if in our hearts we know

There's such a place as Yarrow.

“Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown !

It must, or we shall rue it: We have a vision of our own;

Ah! why should we undo it! The treasured dreams of times long past,

We'll keep them, winsome Marrow ! For when we're there, although 't is fair,

'T will be another Yarrow !

YARROW UNVISITED. From Stirling Castle we had seen

The mazy Forth unravelled ; Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,

And with the Tweed had travelled ; And when we came to Clovenford,

Then said my “winsome Marrow," “Whate'er betide, we 'll turn aside,

And see the braes of Yarrow."

“If Care with freezing years should come,

And wandering seem but folly, —
Should we be loath to stir from home,

And yet be melancholy, --
Should life be dull, and spirits low,

'T will soothe us in our sorrow,
That earth has something yet to show,-

The bonny holms of Yarrow !”.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTHL.

YARROW VISITED.

AND is this — Yarrow ? — This the stream

Of which my fancy cherished, So faithfully, a waking dream?

An image that hath perished !
O that some minstrel's harp were near,

To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,

That fills my heart with sadness !

“Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,

Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow; 't is their own, -

Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,

Hares couch, and rabbits burrow ! But we will downward with the Tweed,

Nor turn aside to Yarrow. “There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,

Both lying right before us ; And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed

The lintwhites sing in chorus ; There's pleasant Teviot-dale, a land

Made blithe with plough and harrow : Why throw away a needful day

To go in search of Yarrow ? “What's Yarrow but a river bare,

That glides the dark hills under ? There are a thousand such elsewhere,

As worthy of your wonder.” Strange words they seemed, of slight and scorn;

My true-love sighed for sorrow, And looked me in the face, to think

I thus could speak of Yarrow ! “0, green,” said I, “are Yarrow's holms,

And sweet is Yarrow flowing ! Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,

But we will leave it growing. O'er hilly path and open strath

We'll wander Scotland thorough ; But, though so near, we will not turn

Into the dale of Yarrow.

Yet why?- a silvery current flows

With uncontrolled meanderings ; Nor have these eyes by greener hills

Been soothed in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, St. Mary's Lake

Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills

Is in the mirror slighted.

A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow vale,

Save where that pearly whiteness Is round the rising sun diffused, —

A tender, hazy brightness; Mild dawn of promise! that excludes

All profitless dejection ; Though not unwilling here to admit

A pensive recollection.

“Let beeves and homebred kine partake

The sweets of Burn Mill meadow; The swan still on St. Mary's Lake

Float double, swan and shadow !

Where was it that the famous Flower

Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding? His bed perchance was yon smooth mound

On which the herd is feeding;