I

For surely once, they feel we were
Parts of a single continent.

Now round us spreads the watery plain-
O might our marges meet again!
Who order'd that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renders vain their deep desire?—
A God, a God their severance rul'd ;
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sca.
Matthew Arnold.

TO ITALY.

FELT the wind soft from the land of souls ; The old miraculous mountains heaved in sight, One straining past another along the shore, The way of grand dull Odyssean ghosts, Athirst to drink the cool blue wine of seas

And stare on voyagers. Peak pushing peak

They stood: I watched, beyond that Tyrian belt
Of intense sea betwixt them and the ship,
Down all their sides the misty olive woods
Dissolving in the weak congenial moon,
And still disclosing some brown convent-tower
That seems as if it grew from some brown rock.
Or many a little lighted village, dropt
Like a fallen star upon so high a point,
You wonder what can keep it in its place
From sliding headlong with the waterfalls
Which powder all the myrtle and orange groves
With spray of silver. Thus my Italy

AN EVENING RIDE.

Was stealing on us.

Genoa broke with day,

The Doria's long pale palace striking out

From green hills in advance of the white town,

A marble finger dominant to ships,

185

Seen glimmering through the uncertain gray of dawn.

Mrs. Browning.

AN EVENING RIDE.

From Glashütte to Mügeln, in Saxony.

WE ride and ride. High on the hills

The fir-trees stretch into the sky;
The birches which the deep calm stills
Quiver again as we speed by.

Beside the road a shallow stream
Goes leaping o'er its rocky bed:
Here lie the corn-fields, with a gleam
Of daisies white and poppies red.
A faint star trembles in the west;

A fire-fly sparkles, fluttering bright
Against the mountain's sombre breast;
And yonder shines a village light.
Oh! could I creep into thine arms,
Beloved! and upon thy face

Read the arrest of dire alarms

That press me close; from thy embrace

View the sweet earth as on we ride.
Alas! how vain our longings are!

Already night is spreading wide
Her sable wing, and thou art far.

Owen Linsley.

SAUNTE

THE SEA-GULL.

AUNTERING hither on listless wings,
Careless vagabond of the sea,

Little thou heedest the surf that sings,
The bar that thunders, the shale that rings,-
Give me to keep thy company.

Little thou hast, old friend, that's new,
Storms and wrecks are old things to thee;
Sick am I of these changes, too;

Little to care for, little to rue,—

I on the shore and thou on the sea.

All of thy wanderings, far and near,
Bring thee at last to shore and me ;
All of my journeyings end them here,
This our tether must be our cheer,-
I on the shore and thou on the sea.

Lazily rocking on ocean's breast,

Something in common, old friend, have we ; Thou on the shingle seek'st thy nest,

I to the waters look for rest,—

I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

THE CREED OF LIFE.

Bret Harte.

ANONS and rubrics own I none,

CA

Save one upon the granite writ : "I, Lord of Lords, have fashioned it, And graved it with my rains and sun.”

AMONG THE FIR-TREES.

One creed, all other creeds above
I take into my soul like fire,

Till, flashing through me with desire,
The world is molten in my prayer.

It is my beating heart! I turn,

I face the streams, I brave the hills:
With the same word the bird's breast fills ;
With the same God the bushes burn.

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John Tunis.

Ο

AMONG THE FIR-TREES.

N the bare hill-top, by the pinewood's edge, how joyously rang the noise

Of the mountain wind in the topmost boughs! a spell there was in its voice.

It drew me to leave the goodly sight of the plain sweeping far away,

And enter the solemnly shaded depths to hear what the trees would say.

But no sooner I trod the russet floor than hushed were the magic tones :

No stir but the flight of a startled bird, no sound but my foot on the cones.

All silently rose the stately shafts, kirtled with lich

ens gray,

And the sunlight-flakes on their reddening tops were as still and unmoved as they.

Was it joy or dread that pressed my heart? I felt as one who must hear

Some long-kept secret, and knows not as yet if it bring him hope or fear;

I stood as still as the solemn firs, and hearkened with waiting mind;

Then I heard far away in the topmost boughs the eternal sough of the wind.

And the thrill of that mystic murmur so entered my listening heart,

That the very soul of the forest trees became with my soul a part;

I seemed to be raised and borne aloft in that ever

ascending strain,

With a throb too solemn and deep for joy, too perfect and pure for pain.

Many voices there are in Nature's choir, and none but were good to hear

Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and could read their meaning clear;

But we who can feel at Nature's touch cannot think

as yet with her thought,

And I only know that the sough of the firs with a spell of its own is fraught.

For the wind when it howls in the chimneys at night hath a heavy and dreary sound

Of the dull everlasting treadmill of life, which goes so wearily round;