And when, to guard old Bregenz,
By gateway, street, and tower,
The warder paces all night long,
And calls each passing hour;

"Nine," "ten," "eleven,” he cries aloud,
And then - O crown of Fame! —

When midnight pauses in the skies,
He calls the maiden's name!

THE WIND AND THE MOON.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

SAID the Wind to the Moon, "I will blow you out.

You stare

In the air

Like a ghost in a chair,

Always looking what I am about;

I hate to be watched; I will blow you out."

The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.
So, deep

On a heap

Of clouds, to sleep,

Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon
Muttering low, "I've done for that Moon."

He turned in his bed; she was there again!

On high

In the sky,

With her one ghost eye,

The Moon shone white and alive and plain.

Said the Wind - "I will blow you out again."

The Wind blew hard, and the Moon grew dim.

"With my sledge

And my wedge

I have knocked off her edge!

If only I blow right fierce and grim,

The creature will soon be dimmer than dim.”

He blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread.

"One puff
More's enough

To blow her to snuff!

One good puff more where the last was bred,
And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go the thread!"

He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone;

In the air

Nowhere

Was a moonbeam bare;

Far off and harmless the shy stars shone;
Sure and certain the Moon was gone!

The Wind he took to his revels once more;
On down,

In town,

Like a merry, mad clown,

He leaped and halloed with whistle and roar, "What's that?" The glimmering thread once more!

He flew in a rage

he danced and blew ;

But in vain

Was the pain

Of his bursting brain;

For still the broader the Moon-scrap grew,

The broader he swelled his big cheeks and blew.

Slowly she grew-till she filled the night,

And shone

On her throne

In the sky alone,

A matchless, wonderful, silvery light,
Radiant and lovely, the queen of the night.

Said the Wind “What a marvel of power am I!

With my breath,

Good faith!

I blew her to death

First blew her away right out of the sky
Then blew her in; what a strength am I!

But the Moon she knew nothing about the affair,

For, high

In the sky,

With her one white eye,

Motionless, miles above the air,

She had never heard the great Wind blare.

THANATOPSIS.

W. C. BRYANT.

To him, who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware.

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,
Go forth into the open sky, and list

To nature's teaching, while from all around
Comes a still voice:

"Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more,

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go,

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon.

The oak

Shall send its roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place

nor couldst thou wish

Shalt thou retire alone;
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher.

"The hills,

Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales,

Stretching in pensive quietness between;

The venerable woods; rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadow green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man.

The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,

Through the still lapse of ages.

All that tread

The globe, are but a handful, to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods,
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save its own dashings - yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what, if thou shalt fall,
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone; the solemn brood of care
Plod on; and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet, all these shall leave
Their mirth and their enjoyments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee.

"As the long train

Of ages glide away, the sons of men,

The youth, in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant, in the smiles

And beauty of its innocent age cut off —
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those who, in their turn, shall follow them.

"So live, that, when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan that moves