There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those honrs the ancient timepiece told, -

“For ever-never ! Never-for ever!”
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow ;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,-

“For ever-never ! Never-for ever!”
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask with throbs of pain,
“Ah! when shall they all meet again?
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,-

“For ever--never! Never-for ever!"
Never here, for ever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear, –
For ever there, but never here !
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly, -

“For ever-never! Never-for ever!

THE PAUPER'S DEATH-BED. This poem-as well as the following one-is by CAROLINE Bowles SOUTHEY, the daughter of the Rev. W. L. Bowles, himself a poet, and the second wife, for a few years, of the poet Southey. Both poems are in a noble style, full of strong sympathy and religious feeling. Both should be read rery slowly and very distinctly.

TREAD softly! bow the head

reverent silence bow !
No passing bell doth toll;
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.
Stranger, however great,

With lowly reverence bow!

There's one
in that poor

sbed
One by that paltry bed-

Greater than thoù !b
Beneath that beggar's roof,

Lo! Death doth keep his state !
Enter !-no crowds attend
Enter !-no guards defend

This palace gate.
That pavement damp and cold

No smiling courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands,
Lifting with meagre bands

A dying head.
No mingling voices sound-

An infant wail alone;
A sob suppressed-again
That short deep gasp--and then

The parting groan!
Oh! change-oh! wondrous change!

Burst are ° the prison bars!
This moment there, so low,
So agonized-and now

Beyond the stars !
Oh! change-stupendous change!

There lies the soulless clod? 1
The sun eternal breaks

;
The new immortal wakes

Wakes with his God. CAUTIONS : a. The emphasis is on no, and not on passing. b. A deep falling inflection marks this thou. c. The pause after burst enables the reader to escape the verse-accent upon are.

MEANING: 1. Soulless clod, piece of clay from which the soul has fled.

.

CAUTION : a. The emphasis is on short, and not on grows.

A GATHERING SONG. This

song is supposed to be sung to the bagpipe (or pibroch), to summon the clan for war. It has an eager and impetuous rhythm ; and the last verse gives the result of the summons.

PIBROCH of Donuil Dhu, pibroch of Donuil,
Wake thy wild voice anew, summon Clan-Conuil !
Come way, come away-hark to the summons !
Come in your war array, gentles and commons !1
Come from deep glen and from mountain so rocky;
The war-pipe and pennon are at Inverlochy.?
Come every hill-plaid, and true heart that wears one;
Come every steel blade, and strong hand that bears one.
Leave untended the herd, the flock without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterred, the bride at the altar;
Leave the deer, leave the steer, 4 leave nets and barges :
Come with your fighting gear, broadswords and targes.
Come as the winds come when forests are rended;
Come as the waves come when navies are stranded!
Faster come,
faster come,

faster and faster-
Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master!
Fast they come, fast they come-see how they gather
Wide waves the eagle plume blended with heather.

THE PAUPER'S DRIVE.

179

Cast your plaids, draw your blades, forward each man set!
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu knell for the onset !

WALTER Scott. CAUTION: This poem should be read quickly, but with the utmost clearness of articulation. The speed and eagerness go on increasing with each verse.

MEANINGS: 1. Gentles and commons, chiefs and retainers. 2. Inverlochy, this was the place appointed for the clan to muster. 3. Uninterred, unburied. 4. Steer, bullock. 5. Targes, round shields made of bull-hide.

as fast

THE PAUPER'S DRIVE. The idea of this poem is that the pauper has at last become a "gentleman," and drives out in his own carriage—but only after death. He makes a noise in the world—but only when he cannot enjoy it himseif. The gentle and pathetic conclusion of the poem recalls the reader to the true key-note: even the pauper as well as others, is one of God's children.

THERE's a grim one-horse hearse' in a jolly round trot.
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot;?
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no* springs;
And hark to the dirge3 which the mad driver sings:

Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !
Oh, where are the mourners ? Alas!

there are

nòne-
He has left not a gap in the world now he's gone-
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man;
To the grave with his carcase

as you can.
What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din!
The whip how it cracks! and the wheels how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled !-
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world!
Poor pauper defunct !4 he has made some approach
To gentility now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last:
But it will not be long if he goes on so fast.
You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed-
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid !
And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low,
You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go!
But a truce to this strain ;5 for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend!

Bear soft his bones over the stones!
Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns.

NOEL. CAUTIONS: The chief point to attend to in reading this poem is, not to allow the verse to induce a jerky style; and this will be best avoided by paying the utmost attention to the sense and thought alone. - a. The emphasis is on no. b. This but introduces a total change, from the almost wicked irony of the previous lines, to human pity and sympathy. c. Read these lines very slowly; and the last two with the greatest slowness and solemnity.

MEANINGS : 1. Hearse, a coach in which coffins are carried. 2. Wot, know. 3. Dirge, funeral song. 4. Defunct, dead. 5. A truce to this strain, enough of such words as these.

SPAKE* full well in language quaint and olden,

One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers so blue and golden,

Stars that in earth's firmamenti do shine.
Wondrous truths, and manifold? as wondrous,

God hath written in those stars above;
But not lesed in the bright flowerets under us

Stands the revelation of His love.
Bright and glorious is that revelation,

Writ alle over this great world of ours-
Making evident our own creation,

In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
Everywhere about us are they glowing:

Some like stars to tell us spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn.

LONGFELLOW. CAUTIONS : a. No accent on spake, but one on each of the words full and well. b. Avoid the verse accent on by. c. Avoid the verse-accent on in, and utter slowly the words those stars above. d. Not less to be said slowly and weightily. e. Emphasis on all.

MEANINGS : 1. Firmament, sky. 2. Manifold, of many kinds.

WAR.

These lines are a prayer for the cessation of war, and a wish that the energy and the wealth contributed to war were diverted to the arts and sciences.

WERE half the power that fills the earth with terror,

Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,

There were no need, of argenals nor forts.