Deserted! who hath dreamt that when The cross in darkness rested, Upon the victim's hidden face No love was manifested? What frantic hands outstretched have e'er Th' atoning drops averted What tears have washed them from the soul- That of the lost, no son should use Those words of desolation; That, earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, And I, on Cowper's grave, should see THE WAITING. John G. Whittier, I wait and watch: before my eyes Beneath the oriflamme of day! Like one whose limbs are bound in trance The shining ones with plumes of snow! I can but lift up hands unmeet, I will not dream in vain despair The planet's impulse well may spare, The loss, if loss there be, is mine, And yet not mine if understood; O power to do! O baffled will! O prayer and action! ye are one; And good but wished with God is done! ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF TONE. TO A SKYLARK. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart Percy Bysshe Shelley. 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 sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied 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 are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, or feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 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. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heedeth not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, 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 embowered In its own green leaves, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 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 triumphant 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 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 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, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!""-Jacques Bridaine. Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. Tall poplar trees their shadows throw, By day its voice is low and light; And seems to say, at each chamber-door, |