Where comes by whistling fen and fall
The moan of far-off seas--

A gray old Fancy often sits

Beneath thy shade with tired wings, And fills thy strong, strange rhyme by fits With awful utterings.

Then times there are when all the words
Are like the sentences of one
Shut in by fate from wind and birds

And light of stars and sun!
No dazzling dryad, but a dark

Dream-haunted spirit, doomed to be Imprisoned, cramped in bands of bark, For all eternity.

Yea, like the speech of one aghast

At Immortality in chains,
What time the lordly storm rides past
With flames and arrowy rains:
Some wan Tithonus of the wood,
White with immeasurable years
An awful ghost, in solitude

With moaning moors and meres !

And when high thunder smites the hill
And hunts the wild dog to his den,
Thy cries, like maledictions, shrill
And shriek from glen to glen,
As if a frightful memory whipped

More than ever you could gather-
More than ever you could glean
From our tale.

We have seen, and heard, and laughed,
As we tossed the shattered craft,
While those on board, aghast,
Every moment thought their last,
In the gale.

We tossed them like a plaything,
And rent their riven sail;
And we laughed our loud Ha! ha!
With the demons of the gale
In their ears.

We have laughed, and heard, and seen,
In the lightning's lurid sheen,

And the growling thunder's blast;
And we drowned them all at last
For their fears.

He went into the bush, and passed

Out of the sight of living men, None knows the nook that held him last, None ever saw his face again.

It may be, in the wildering wood

He wandered, weary, spent of breath, Till the all-mastering solitude

Sank to the deeper hush of death.

Perchance he crawled where the low bush,
More verdant, whispered streams were
nigh,
Hopeful, but desperate, made a rush,

And found, O God! the bed was dry!

He was a waif, and friends had none;
Who knows but in some distant land
A mother mourns her errant son,
A sister longs to clasp his hand?

He was a waif, but with him died
A world of yearnings deep within -
Yearning to loftiest things allied,

But wrecked by cruel fate, or sin.

None heard the lone one's dying prayer
Save Infinite Pity bending o'er,
Who, haply, bore him quietly where
They hunger and they thirst no

more.

O ve vast woods! what fond life-dreams Ye close! what broken lives ye hide! Darkly absorbed, like hopeful streams, That in dry desert lands subside.

Stranger the tales ye could unfold

Than wild romancer ever penned, Remaining buried in the mould

Till time shall cease, and mystery end!

That day had Philip courage gained to tell His tale of love to pretty Christabel ; And she, on her part, with ingenuous grace, Endorsed the tell-tale of her blushing face. Dream on, true lover! never, never thou Shalt press the kiss of welcome on her brow. E'en now a comrade, eager for thy gold, Above thy fond true heart the knife doth hold

One stroke, the weapon's plunged into his breast;

So sure the aim that, like a child at rest,

The murdered digger lies, -a happy smile Parts the full manly bearded lips the while.

Next day they found him. In his death

Yet still as he went out he paused by the door

(For his mind was in truth heavy laden), And he saw a stout fellow, equipped for the war,

Embracing a fair-haired young maiden.

"Ho! ho!" said the Chancellor, "this will not do,

For Mars to be toying with Venus, When these Frenchmen are coming-a rascally crew!

And the Rhine only flowing between us."

So the wary old fox, just in order to hear, Strode one or two huge paces nearer; And he heard the youth say, "More than life art thou dear;

But, O loved one, the Fatherland's

dearer."

Then the maid dried her tears and looked up in his eyes,

And she said, "Thou of loving art worthy:

When all are in danger no brave man e'er flies,

And thy love should spur on — not deter thee."

The Chancellor took a cigar, which he lit,

And he muttered, "Here's naught to

alarm me;

By Heaven! I swear they are both of them fit

To march with the great German army."

THE CYNIC OF THE WOODS1

COME from busy haunts of men,
With nature to commune,
Which you, it seems, observe, and then
Laugh out, like some buffoon.

You cease, and through the forest drear
I pace, with sense of awe;
When once again upon my ear
Breaks in your harsh guffaw.

I look aloft to yonder place,
Where placidly you sit,
And tell you to your very face,
I do not like your wit.