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النشر الإلكتروني

52

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

Half turned the matchless sculpture of her head,
And half shook down her silken circling braid;
Her back-blown scarf an archéd rainbow made;
She seemed to float on air, so light she sped;
Skimming the wavy flowers, as she passed by,
With fair and printless feet, like clouds along the sky.

One sat alone within a shady nook,

With wild-wood songs the lazy hours beguiling;

Or looking at her shadow in the brook,

Trying to frown, then at the effort smiling;
Her laughing eyes mocked every serious look;
'Twas as if Love stood at himself reviling:

She threw in flowers, and watched them float away,
Then at her beauty looked, then sang a sweeter lay.

Some lay like Thetis' nymphs along the shore,
With ocean-pearl combing their golden locks,
And singing to the waves for evermore ;

Sinking, like flowers at eve, beside the rocks,
If but a sound above the muffled roar

Of the low waves was heard. In little flocks,

Others went trooping through the wooded alleys,
Their kirtles glancing white, like streams in sunny valleys.

THOMAS MILLER.

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F by thy banks, O gently winding stream,
No minstrel chords in ecstasy have rung;
Nor child of Art, in Inspiration's dream,
O'er thy glassed wave with airy pencil hung;
To one, at least, the quivering sallows pale,

And rustling sedge, and fields with king cups gay,
Which fringe thy course through many a low-browed vale,
(When Memory summons back life's long-past May),
Rise fraught with magic influence. Joy and peace

On thy green verge, mild flood, and waters be!
And when this hand, unstrung from toil, shall cease,
May hundreds still, in happy childhood free,

Taste the same sweets from cloudless youth's increase,
As I, when sporting once untired, by thee.

J. F. HOLLINGS.

54

THE WAIL OF THE RIVER.

THE WAIL OF THE RIVER.

PHAT saith the river to the rushes grey,

Rushes sadly bending,

River slowly wending?

Who can tell the whispered things they say?
Youth, and time, and manhood's prime,
For ever, ever fled away!

Cast your withered garlands in the stream;

Low autumnal branches,

Round the skiff that launches,

Wavering downward through the lands of dream,

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Draw him tideward down; but not in haste.

Mouldering daylight lingers;

Night, with her cold fingers,

Sprinkles moonbeams on the dim sea-waste.

Ever, ever fled away!

Vainly cherished! vainly chased!

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