TO A SKYLARK

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire,

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the setting sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven.

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

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 chant,

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?

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.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley.

COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown!

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,

And the planet of Love is on high,

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves,
On a bed of daffodil sky,-

To faint in the light of the sun that she loves.
To faint in its light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune,-
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one

With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those
For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,
"For ever and ever mine!"

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clashed in the hall;

And long by the garden lake I stood,

For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet, That whenever a March-wind sighs,

He sets the jewel-print of your feet

In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet,
And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;

But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither! the dances are done;
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate!

The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near";
And the white rose weeps, " She is late ";
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear ";
And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet!
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthly bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

-Lord Tennyson.

THE CHEAP JACK

I am a Cheap Jack, and my father's name was Willum Mari gold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery?

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. The doctor being a very kind gentleman, and accepting

no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me Doctor Marigold.

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. And my father was a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that, of all the callings ill-used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges? Why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks. I don't see any difference but what's in our favor.

For look here! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the market place on a Saturday night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here my free and independent woters, I'm a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you what I am going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that 'll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavored with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it, and there you are replete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half a dozen dinner-plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the baby when it's fractious. Stop. I'll throw you in another article, and I'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin, and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming, and rub the gums once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter, equal to being tickled. Stop again! I'll throw you in another article, because I don't like the looks of you, for you have n't the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money to-night, and that article's a looking-glass, in which you may see how ugly you look when you do n't bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you have n't got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe