THE waters purled, the waters swelled, A fisher sat near by,

And earnestly his line beheld

With tranquil heart and eye; And while he sits and watches there, He sees the waves divide, And, lo! a maid, with glistening hair, Springs from the troubled tide.

She sang to him, she spake to him,

"Why lur'st thou from below, In cruel mood, my tender brood, To die in day's fierce glow ?

Ah! didst thou know how sweetly there

The little fishes dwell,

Thou wouldst come down their lot to share,

And be forever well.

"Bathes not the smiling sun at nightThe moon too- in the waves ?

THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM.
A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long
Had cheered the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel as well he might -
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied, far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark;
So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, quite eloquent,

"Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,

"As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song ;
For 't was the self-same Power divine
Taught you to sing, and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night."
The songster heard his short oration,
And, warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.

WILLIAM Cowper.

THE MILKMAID.

A MILKMAID, who poised a full pail on her head, Thus mused on her prospects in life, it is said: "Let me see, I should think that this milk

will procure

One hundred good eggs, or fourscore, to be sure. "Well then, stop a bit, it must not be forgotten,

Of these some may die, we 'll suppose seventeen, Seventeen not so many, say ten at the most, Which will leave fifty chickens to boil or to roast.

"But then there's their barley: how much will they need?

Why, they take but one grain at a time when they feed,

So that's a mere trifle; now then, let us see,
At a fair market price how much money there'll be.
"Six shillings a pair-five-four-three-and-six,
To prevent all mistakes, that low price I will fix ;
Now what will that make? fifty chickens, I said,-
Fifty times three-and-sixpence - I'll ask Brother
Ned.

A temple for ages entombed, to disclose, -
When, lo he disturbed, in its secret repose,
A toad, from whose journal it plainly appears
It had lodged in that mansion some thousands of
years.

The roll which this reptile's long history records,
A treat to the sage antiquarian affords:
The sense by obscure hieroglyphics concealed,
Deep learning at length, with long labor, revealed.
The first thousand years as a specimen take,
The dates are omitted for brevity's sake:
"Crawled forth from some rubbish, and winked
with one eye;

Half opened the other, but could not tell why;
Stretched out my left leg, as it felt rather queer,
Then drew all together and slept for a year.
Awakened, felt chilly, crept under a stone;
Was vastly contented with living alone.
One toe became wedged in the stone like a peg,
Could not get it away, had the cramp in my leg;
Began half to wish for a neighbor at hand
To loosen the stone, which was fast in the sand;
Pulled harder, then dozed, as I found 't was no

The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould, Lying loose on a ponderous stone.

Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne,

A toad has been sitting more years than is known; And strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems The world standing still while he's dreaming his dreams,

Does this wonderful toad, in his cheerful abode In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in the hollow, from morning till night,
Dun shadows glide over the ground,
Where a watercourse once, as it sparkled with
light,

Turned a ruined old mill-wheel around: Long years have passed by since its bed became dry,

And the trees grow so close, scarce a glimpse of the sky

Is seen in the hollow, so dark and so damp, Where the glow-worm at noonday is trimming

his lamp,

And hardly a sound from the thicket around, Where the rabbit and squirrel leap over the

ground,

Is heard by the toad in his spacious abode In the innermost heart of that ponderous stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in that hollow the bees never

come,

The shade is too black for a flower; And jewel-winged birds, with their musical hum, Never flash in the night of that bower; But the cold-blooded snake, in the edge of the brake,

Lies amid the rank grass halfasleep, halfawake; And the ashen-white snail, with the slime in

its trail,

Moves wearily on like a life's tedious tale,

Yet disturbs not the toad in his spacious abode, In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in a hollow some wiseacres sit Like the toad in his cell in the stone; Around them in daylight the blind owlets flit, And their creeds are with ivy o'ergrown ;Their streams may go dry, and the wheels cease to ply,

And their glimpses be few of the sun and the sky, Still they hug to their breast every time-hon

ored guest,

And slumber and doze in inglorious rest; For no progress they find in the wide sphere of mind,

I cannot trust your counsel, friend,
It surely hides some wicked end."

Said Satan, "Near the throne of God,
In ages past, we devils trod;

Angels of light, to us 't was given
To guide each wandering foot to heaven.

Not wholly lost is that first love,
Nor those pure tastes we knew above.

Roaming across a continent,
The Tartar moves his shifting tent,

But never quite forgets the day
When in his father's arms he lay;
So we, once bathed in love divine,
Recall the taste of that rich wine.
God's finger rested on my brow,
That magic touch, I feel it now !

I fell, 't is true-O, ask not why,
For still to God I turn my eye.
It was a chance by which I fell,
Another takes me back from hell.

For how can I thy words believe, When even God thou didst deceive?

our sin

A sea of lies art thou,
Only a drop that sea within."

"Not so," said Satan, "I serve God,
His angel now, and now his rod.

In tempting I both bless and curse,
Make good men better, bad men worse.
Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother,
I but distinguish one from the other."
"Granted," the Caliph said, "but still
You never tempt to good, but ill.

Tell then the truth, for well I know
You come as my most deadly foe."

Loud laughed the fiend. "You know me well,
Therefore my purpose I will tell.

If you had missed your prayer, I knew
A swift repentance would ensue.

And such repentance would have been

A good, outweighing far the sin.

OUR revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

SHAKESPEARE.