CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER.

CCXXXVII.

THE OCEAN.

THE Ocean at the bidding of the moon
For ever changes with his restless tide;
Flung shoreward now, to be regathered soon
With kindly pauses of reluctant pride
And semblance of return: Anon-from home
He issues forth anew, high ridg'd and free—
The gentlest murmur of his seething foam
Like armies whispering where great echoes be!
O leave me here upon this beach to rove,
Mute listener to that sound so grand and lone—
A glorious sound, deep drawn and strongly thrown,
And reaching those on mountain heights above,
To British ears, (as who shall scorn to own?)
A tutelar fond voice, a saviour-tone of Love!

CCXXXVIII.

THE LAKE.

O LAKE of sylvan shore, when gentle Spring Slopes down upon thee from the mountain side, When birds begin to build and brood and sing, Or in maturer season, when the pied

And fragrant turf is thronged with blossoms rare In the frore sweetness of the breathing morn, When the loud pealing of the huntsman's horn Doth sally forth upon the silent air

Of thy thick forestry, may I be there,

While the wood waits to see its phantom born

At clearing twilight in thy glassy breast,

Or when cool eve is busy on thy shores

With trails of purple shadow from the west,
Or dusking in the wake of tardy oars.

CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER.

CCXXXIX.

SUMMER GLOAMING.

It is a Summer's gloaming, faint and sweet,
A gloaming brightened by an infant moon
Fraught with the fairest light of middle June;
The garden path rings hard beneath my feet,
And hark, O hear I not the gentle dews
Fretting the gentle forest in his sleep?
Or does the stir of housing insects creep
Thus faintly on mine ear? day's many hues
Waned with the paling light and are no more,
And none but drowsy pinions beat the air—
The bat is circling softly by my door,
And silent as the snow-flake leaves his lair,
In the dark twilight flitting here and there
Wheeling the self-same circuit o'er and o'er.

CCXL.

"FROM NIGHT TO NIGHT.”

FROM night to night, through circling darkness whirled,
Day dawns, and wanes, and still leaves, as before

The shifting tides and the eternal shore:

Sources of life, and forces of the world,

Unseen, unknown, in folds of mystery furled,

Unseen, unknown, remain for evermore :

To heaven-hid heights man's questioning soul would soar, Yet falls from darkness unto darkness hurled!

Angels of light, ye spirits of the air,

Peopling of yore the dreamland of our youth,

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Ye who once led us through those scenes so fair,

Lead now, and leave us near the realm of Truth: Lo, if in dreams some truths we chanced to see, Now in the truth some dreams may haply be.

SAMUEL WADDINGTON.

CCXLI.

THE AFTERMATH.

It was late summer, and the grass again

Had grown knee-deep,-we stood, my love and I, Awhile in silence where the stream runs by;

Idly we listened to a plaintive strain,

A young maid singing to her youthful swain,——
Ah me, dead days remembered make us sigh,
And tears will sometimes flow we know not why;
"If spring be past," I said, "shall love remain ?”

She moved aside, yet soon she answered me,
Turning her gaze responsive to mine own,—
Spring days are gone, and yet the grass, we see
Unto a goodly height again hath grown;

Dear love, just so love's aftermath may be

A richer growth than e'er spring-days have known.”