PART II

SELECTIONS OF POETRY.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,

Floats some fragments of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of truth,
From the dashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
That forever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate ;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.

II-THE WINDS.

YE winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;

W. C. BRYANT.

Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair
O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye rolled the round white clouds through depths of blue;
Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the Catalpa's blossoms flew,

Slight blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.