To the golden sands and the leaping bar,
And the taintless tide that awaits me afar,
As I lose myself in the infinite main,

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again,
Undefiled for the undefiled;

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child!

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

TO SENECA LAKE.

ON thy fair bosom, silver lake,

The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,
And round his breast the ripples break,
As down he bears before the gale.
On thy fair bosom, waveless stream,
The dipping paddle echoes far,
And flashes in the moonlight gleam,
And bright reflects the polar star.

The waves along thy pebbly shore,

As blows the north-wind, heave their foam, And curl around the dashing oar,

As late the boatman hies him home.

How sweet, at set of sun, to view

Thy golden mirror spreading wide, And see the mist of mantling blue

Float round the distant mountain's side.

At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below,
And swift she cuts, at highest noon,

Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow.

On thy fair bosom, silver lake,

O, I could ever sweep the oar,

When early birds at morning wake,
And evening tells us toil is o'er !

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.

THE BUGLE.

FROM "THE PRINCESS."

THE splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark! O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O sweet and far, from cliff and scar, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

THE FALL OF NIAGARA.

THE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,

While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God poured thee from his hollow hand,
And hung his bow upon thine awful front,
And spoke in that loud voice which seemed to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake
The sound of many waters; and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks.

Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
O, what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering
side?

Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him
Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains? —a light wave,
That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.

JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore !"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked 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 to 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 't was in my vocation For their recreation That so 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 fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;

Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, 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 in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till, in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.

The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among ;
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in ;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting, Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting,

And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
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 going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,

And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;

And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;

Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling 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,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dan-

cing,

Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming 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 twirl

ing,

And thumping and plumping 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 blend

ing

All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

ROBERT Southey.

WHAT THE WINDS BRING.

WHICH is the wind that brings the cold?
The north-wind, Freddy, and all the snow;
And the sheep will scamper into the fold
When the north begins to blow.

Which is the wind that brings the heat?
The south-wind, Katy; and corn will grow,
And peaches redden for you to eat,

When the south begins to blow.

Which is the wind that brings the rain?
The east-wind, Arty; and farmers know
That cows come shivering up the lane
When the east begins to blow.

Which is the wind that brings the flowers?
The west-wind, Bessy; and soft and low
The birdies sing in the summer hours
When the west begins to blow.

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

THE DANCING OF THE AIR. AND now behold your tender nurse, the air, And common neighbor that aye runs around, How many pictures and impressions fair

Within her empty regions are there found, Which to your senses dancing do propound! For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds, But dancings of the air in sundry kinds?

For when you breathe, the air in order moves,
Now in, now out, in time and measure true ;
And when you speak, so well she dancing loves,
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
With thousand forms she doth herself endue:
For all the words that from your lips repair,
Are naught but tricks and turnings of the air.

Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born,
That dances to all voices she can hear :
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn,
Nor any time wherein she will forbear
The airy pavement with her feet to wear :
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth every trick.

And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life,

The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech, Loadstone of fellowship, charming-rod of strife, The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech. With thine own tongue thou trees and stones canst teach,

That, when the air doth dance her finest measure, Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure.

FROM "THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.”

KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl in her bloom? Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of