And with music fill the sky,
Now, even now, my joys run high.
Be full, ye courts; be great who will;
Search for Peace with all your skill;
Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor.

In vain you search; she is not here!
In vain you search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with Pleasure, close allied,
Ever by each other's side;

And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

AFTON WATER.

JOHN DYER.

I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.
How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills,
Farmarked with the courses of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear

wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

ROBERT BURNS.

THE SHADED WATER.

WHEN that my mood is sad, and in the noise
And bustle of the crowd I feel rebuke,

I turn my footsteps from its hollow joys
And sit me down beside this little brook;

There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent, While every sense on earnest mission sent, Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour,

Returns, thought laden, back with bloom and flower

Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil, A profitable toil.

And still the waters trickling at my feet

Wind on their way with gentlest melody, Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat, Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by, Yet not so rudely as to send one sound Through the thick copse around.

Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees,

Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, pressed
On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries,
And with awakened vision upward bent,
I watch the firmament.

How like- its sure and undisturbed retreat,
Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm-
To the pure waters trickling at my feet

The bending trees that overshade my form! So far as sweetest things of earth may seem Like those of which we'dream.

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."

"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 !

"O, 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.

"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 !

"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 WORDSWORTH.

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!

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.

And noble arch in proud decay,

Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers; But one thing want these banks of Rhine,Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

I send the lilies given to me :
Though long before thy hand they touch
I know that they must withered be,
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherished them as dear,

Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
And know'st them gathered by the Rhine,
And offered from my heart to thine!

The river nobly foams and flows,

The charm of this enchanted ground, And all its thousand turns disclose

Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,

Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine?

BYRON.

On Alpine heights, o'er many a fragrant heath, The loveliest breezes breathe;

So free and pure the air,

His breath seems floating there.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

On Alpine heights, beneath his mild blue eye,
Still vales and meadows lie;

The soaring glacier's ice
Gleams like a paradise.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

Down Alpine heights the silvery streamlets flow ;
There the bold chamois go;

On giddy crags they stand,
And drink from his own hand.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

On Alpine heights, in troops all white as snow,
The sheep and wild goats go;
There, in the solitude,

He fills their hearts with food.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

On Alpine heights the herdsman tends his herd;

His Shepherd is the Lord;

For he who feeds the sheep

Will sure his offspring keep.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

KRUMMACHER (German). Translation of CHARLES T. BROOKS.

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

NIGHT was again descending, when my mule,
That all day long had climbed among the clouds,
Higher and higher still, as by a stair
Let down from heaven itself, transporting me,
Stopped, to the joy of both, at that low door
So near the summit of the Great St. Bernard;

That door which ever on its hinges moved
To them that knocked, and nightly sends abroad
Ministering spirits. Lying on the watch,
Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me,
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb;
And a lay-brother of the Hospital,

Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits
The distant echoes gaining on his ear,
Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand,
While I alighted.

On the same rock beside it stood the church,
Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity;
The vesper-bell, for 't was the vesper-hour,
Duly proclaiming through the wilderness,
"All ye who hear, whatever be your work,
Stop for an instant, -move your lips in prayer!"
And just beneath it, in that dreary dale,

If dale it might be called so near to heaven,
A little lake, 'where never fish leaped up,
Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;
A star, the only one in that small sky,
On its dead surface glimmering. 'Twas a scene
Resembling nothing I had left behind,

As though all worldly ties were now dissolved;
And to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore
Under a beetling cliff stood half in shadow
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,
For such as, having wandered from their way,
Had perished miserably. Side by side,
Within they lie, a mournful company

All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;
Their features full of life, yet motionless
In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,
Though the barred windows, barred against the
wolf,

Are always open!

SAMUEL ROGERS.

THE RECOLLECTION.

Now the last day of many days
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise !
Up, do thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,

For now the earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the heaven's brow.

We wandered to the pine forest

That skirts the ocean's foam;
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise!

We paused amid the pines that stood

The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed by every azure breath
That under heaven is blown
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own:
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean-woods may be.

How calm it was! the silence there

By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. There seemed from the remotest seat Of the wide mountain waste To the soft flower beneath our feet A magic circle traced, A spirit interfused around, A thrilling silent life; To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature's strife ; And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there

Was one fair Form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.

We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough;

Each seemed as 't were a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;

A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night
And purer than the day,

In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighboring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen

Were imaged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green :
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought
Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.

- Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in waters seen!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.