Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view.

Like a rose embower'd

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was

Joyous and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass :

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt,—

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain ?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be :

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee;

Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

K

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures

Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then as I am listening now.

4.-THE CATARACT OF LODORE.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[See page 110.]

How does the water come down at Lodore?
My little boy asked me thus, once on a time.
Moreover, he task'd me to tell him in rhyme;
Anon at the word there first came one daughter,
And then came another to second and third
The request of their brother, and hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar,
As many a time they had seen it before.

So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store. And 'twas in my vocation that thus I should sing, Because I was laureate to them and the King.

From its sources which well

In the tarn on the fell,

From its fountain in the mountain,
Its rills and its gills,

Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps,
For awhile till it sleeps,
In its own little lake,
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,

And through the wood shelter,
Among crags and its flurry,
Helter-skelter-hurry-skurry.

How does the water come down at Lodore ?
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Here smoking and frothing,
Its tumult and wrath in,

It hastens along, conflicting, and strong,
Now striking and raging,

As if a war waging,

Its caverns and rocks among.

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,

Swelling and flinging,

Showering and springing,

Eddying and whisking,

Spouting and frisking,
Twining and twisting,
Around and around,
Collecting, disjecting,

With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzing and deafening the ear with its sound.

Reeding and speeding,

And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hitting and splitting,

And shining and twining,

And rattling and battling,

And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and growing,
And running and stunning,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And dinning and spinning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And heaving and cleaving,
And thundering and floundering;

And falling and crawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,

And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;

And gleaming and steaming and streaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling turmoiling and toiling and boiling,

And thumping and flumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing,-
And so never ending, but always descending,

Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar—
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

5. THE SALE OF THE PET LAMB.
MARY HOWITT.

[Mary Botham was born at Uttoxeter, in the County of Stafford, and married William Howitt, the popular author and editor, in 1823. Both were originally members of the Society of Friends. Besides the works published in conjunction with her husband, Mrs. Howitt is the authoress of "The Seven Temptations," a dramatic poem; "Wood Leighton," a novel; "The Heir of West Wayland;" and several volumes in prose and verse for children.

She is also favourably known as the translator of the tales of Frederika Bremer and Hans Christian Andersen. Still living.]

OH! poverty is a weary thing, 'tis full of grief and pain;

It boweth down the heart of man, and dulls his cunning brain; It maketh even the little child with heavy sighs complain.

The children of the rich man have not their bread to win ;
They scarcely know how labour is the penalty of sin;
E'en as the lilies of the field they neither toil nor spin.

And year by year, as life wears on, no wants have they to bear;
In all the luxury of the earth they have abundant share;
They walk along life's pleasant ways, where all is rich and fair.

The children of the poor man, though they be young each one,
Must rise betime each morning, before the rising sun;

And scarcely when the sun is set their daily task is done.

Few things have they to call their own, to fill their hearts with pride,

The sunshine, and the summer flowers upon the highway side,
And their own free companionship on heathy commons wide.

Hunger, and cold, and weariness, these are a frightful three;
But another curse there is beside, that darkens poverty;
It may not have one thing to love, how small soe'er it be.

A thousand flocks were on the hills, a thousand flocks and more, Feeding in sunshine pleasantly, they were the rich man's store: There was the while one little lamb, beside a cottage-door;

A little lamb that rested with the children 'neath the tree, That ate, meek creature, from their hands, and nestled to their knee :

That had a place within their hearts, one of the family.

But want, even as an armed man, came down upon their shed,
The father labour'd all day long that his children might be fed,
And, one by one, their household things were sold to buy them
bread.

That father, with a downcast eye, upon his threshold stood, Gaunt poverty each pleasant thought had in his heart subdued. "What is the creature's life to us ?" said he; "'twill buy us food.

66

Ay, though the children weep all day, and with down-drooping head

Each does his small task mournfully, the hungry must be fed;
And that which has a price to bring must go to buy us bread."