A land of streams!-some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some through wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumberous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-flushed; and, dewed with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset lingered low adown

In the red west through mountain-clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow set with slender galingale,—

A land where all things always seemed the same.

Tennyson.

WHO

AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM.

HO are they that prate of the sweet consolation of Nature?

They who fly from the city's heat for a month to the

sea shore,

Drink of unsavory springs, or camp in the green Adirondacks?

They, long since, have left with their samples of ferns and of algæ,

Memories carefully dried and somewhat lacking in color,

Gossip of tree and cliff and wave and modest advent

ure,

AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM.

125

Such as a graceful sentiment—not too earnest-ad

mits of,

Heard in the pause of a dance or bridging the gaps of a dinner.

Nay, but I, who know her, exult in her profligate

seasons,

Turn from the silence of men to her fancied, fond

recognition,

I am repelled at last by her sad and cynical humor. Kinder, cheerier now, were the pavements crowded with people,

Walls that hide the sky, and the endless racket of business.

There a hope in something lifts and enlivens the

current,

Face seeth face, and the hearts of a million, beat

ing together,

Hidden though each from other, at least are outwardly nearer,

Lending the life of all to the one,-bestowing and taking,

Weaving a common web of strength in the meshes of contact,

Close, yet never impeded, restrained, yet delighting in freedom.

There the soul, secluded in self, or touching its fellow

Only with horny palms that hide the approach of the pulses,

Driven abroad, discovers the secret signs of its kindred,

Kisses on lips unknown, and words on the tongue of the stranger.

Life is set to a statelier march, a grander accordance Follows its multitudinous steps of dance and of battle:

Part hath each in the music; even the sacredest whisper

Findeth a soul unafraid and an ear that is ready to

listen.

Bayard Taylor.

TO A PINE-TREE.

AR up on Katahdin thou towerest,

FA

Purple-blue with the distance and vast ;
Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou lowerest,
That hangs poised on a lull in the blast,
To its fall leaning awful.

In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened,
Thou singest and tossest thy branches;
Thy heart with the terror is gladdened,
Thou forebodest the dread avalanches,
When whole mountains swoop valeward.

In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys
With thine arms, as if blessings imploring,
Like an old king led forth from his palace,
When his people to battle are pouring
From the city beneath him.

To the slumberer asleep 'neath thy glooming
Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion,

TO A PINE-TREE.

Till he longs to be swung 'mid their booming
In the tents of the Arabs of ocean,

Whose finnèd isles are their cattle.

For the gale snatches thee for his lyre,
With mad hand crashing melody frantic,
While he pours forth his mighty desire
To leap down on the eager Atlantic,

Whose arms stretch to his playmate.

The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches,
Preying thence on the continent under;
Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches,
There awaiteth his leap the fierce thunder,
Growling low with impatience.

Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green glory,
Lusty father of Titans past number!
The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary,
Nestling close to thy branches in slumber,
And thee mantling with silence.

Thou alone know'st the splendor of winter,
'Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices,
Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter,
And then plunge down the muffled abysses
In the quiet of midnight.

Thou alone know'st the glory of Summer,
Gazing down on thy broad seas of forest,
On thy subjects that send a proud murmur
Up to thee, to their sachem, who towerest
From thy bleak throne to heaven.

127

J. R. Lowell.

I

THE DAFFODILS.

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills;

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee :

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company.

I gazed and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Wordsworth.