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One with her flush'd cheek laid on her white arm,
And raven ringlets gather'd in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;

And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud
The moon breaks, half unveil'd each further charm,
As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,

Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night
All bashfully to struggle into light.

This is no bull, although it sounds so; for

'T was night, but there were lamps, as hath been said. A third's all pallid aspect offer'd more

The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betray'd

Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore Beloved and deplored; while slowly stray'd

(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges

The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes.

A fourth, as marble statue-like and still,

Lay in a breathless, hush'd, and stony sleep;
White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill,
Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,
Or Lot's wife done in salt,-or what you will;-
My similes are gather'd in a heap,

So pick and choose-perhaps you'll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.

A LANDSCAPE.

A passage from one of the poems of S. T. COLERIDGE.

HERE will I seat myself, beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine

Clothes as with net-work: here will I couch my limbs,
Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world-unheard, unseen,
And listening only to the pebbly brook
That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound;
Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk
Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me,
Was never Love's accomplice, never raised

The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;
Ne'er played the wanton-never half disclosed
The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence
Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth,
Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove
Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart
Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, That swells its little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert Stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look Contemplative! Behold! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turn'd, or look'd by stealth (For fear is true love's cruel nurse), he now With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells: And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes! The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return! And lo! he stays: And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror; and behold Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree-but where,

O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd
On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!
Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze
Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime
In mad Love-yearning by the vacant brook,
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou
Behold'st her shadow still abiding there,
The Naiad of the Mirror!

Not to thee,

O wild and desert Stream! belongs this tale:
Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,
Making thee doleful as a cavern-well:

Save when the shy kingfishers build their nest
On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

This be my chosen haunt-emancipate
From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,
I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,
Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.
Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs
How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to reunite! And see! they meet,
Each in the other lost and found: and see
Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, Heart at once and Eye!
With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds ;
And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!
I pass forth into light-I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful
Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods),
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts
The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make

A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might seem,

With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages,
Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet
The whortle-berries are bedew'd with spray,
Dash'd upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass
Swings in its winnow: all the air is calm.

The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light,
Rises in columns; from this house alone,
Close by the waterfall, the column slants,
And feels its ceaseless breeze.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

By CALDER CAMPBELL.

THE dark, deep river in her sight,
And a grave her thoughts within,
She creepeth from the crowded streets,
Loathing their human din :-
Wearily creepeth she

Where none, but God, can hear or see!

Where not a shadow meets

Her worn eyes, but the river deep

With dark pools in the darksome night,

And promise false of an eternal sleep!

Who sent her there? What sent her there
With madness in her brain ?

The love of man to hatred turn'd,

That should have sooner slain

By poison, cord, or knife;

An easier way to take sad life;

To give death, sadly earn'd

By too fond trust, too earnest love,

Than cruel burthenings of care

Heap'd the wrong'd soul and bleeding heart above!

What stopp'd her on the dark pool's brink

Where human eyes were none to see?

What stay'd her from the plunge of dread ?
Canst thou not tell to me?

God's tender gaze beheld

God's love, by human hate repell'd,

Could raise up prayers instead

Of dark, hard thoughts; could make her know 'Tis sin from life sin-stain'd to shrink

Ere Christ hath wash'd the red soul white as snow!

SONNET TO THE AUTHOR OF FESTUS.

By JOHN LOCKE.

RAPT, while I ponder'd o'er thy witching book,
The Past, become again impersonate,
Forecast in vision of the future state,
With glimpses of a lightning beauty shook
Mine inmost soul, all fearful, yet elate—
Unfilmed by thy genius rare to look

On Spirits unveiled, and shining Powers of Air,
Coming and going, as the sunbeams there.

Thus some lone watcher on Brazilian seas
Beholds the splendid meteoric train
Athwart the shadow of our planet sweep
In endless sequence, flashing o'er the main

A gorgeous dawn at midnight-nor can sleep
Lure his tranced gaze from those bright mysteries.

THE COMET.

One of the semi-humorous, semi-serious poems of OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

THE Comet! He is on his way,
And singing as he flies;

The whizzing planets shrink before
The spectre of the skies.

Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,
And satellites turn pale,

Ten million cubic miles of head,
Ten billion leagues of tail!

On, on by whistling spheres of light,
He flashes and he flames;

He turns not to the left nor right,
He asks them not their names;

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