Among the lesser lights how Lucy' shines!
What air of fragrance ROSAMOND throws round!
How like a hymn doth sweet CECILIA Sound!
Of MARTHAS, and of ABIGAILS, few lines
Have bragged in verse.

Of coarsest household stuff
Should homely JOAN be fashioned. But can
You BARBARA resist, or MARIAN?

And is not CLARE for love excuse enough?
Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess,
These all, than Saxon EDITH, please me less.

SWIMMING.2

CHEERED by the milder beam, the sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth
A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands
Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound below;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek

Instant emerge; and through the obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repelled,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour leads, an easy winding path;
While, from his polished sides, a dewy light
Effuses on the pleased spectators round.
This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer heats;
Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood,
Would I, weak-shivering, linger on the brink.

Lamb.

(1) Lucy-from the Latin lux, lucis, light. The graceful ingenuity displayed in this and the next two lines well deserves attention. "Among the lesser lights how Lucy shines," is exceedingly apt; and scarcely less so, "What air of fragrance Rosamond (from the Latin rosa, rose, and munda, pure or sweet) throws round." (2) This passage is extracted from the "Summer" of Thomson's "Seasons." (3) Gazing-i. e. gazing at. This licence of leaving out words is very frequently employed by Thomson. See below, "headlong down the circling flood," i. e. into the flood; and "the limbs knit," i. e. became knit or compacted into strength.

E

Thus life redoubles; and is oft preserved
By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse1
Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs
Knit into force; and the Roman arm
That rose victorious o'er the conquered earth,
First learned, while tender, to subdue the wave.
Even from the body's purity, the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

(1) Illapse-sliding into, occurrence. This "swift illapse of accident disastrous," is a very pedantic and unpleasing expression.

(2) Even-The word "even" belongs to the next clause, though for convenience' sake placed here. The construction in prose would be, From the body's purity, even the mind, &c.

(3) Rays of virtue shine-because tears are frequently the indication of repent

ance.

(4) Love or pity, &c.-all which passions, though so diverse in their character, nd relief through the same natural channel.

The sage's and the poet's theme,1
In every clime, in every age;
Thou charm'st in fancy's idle dream,
In reason's philosophic page.

That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.

Rogers.

A PSALM OF LIFE.3

"Be up and doing."

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

(1) The sages, &c.-The tear which stimulates the poet's fancy, impels the philosopher to inquire scientifically into its origin, the cause of its shape, trickling down, &c.

(2) Law-the law of gravitation.

(3) "No poet has more beautifully expressed the depth of his conviction, that, life is an earnest reality, something with eternal issues and dependencies; that this earth is no scene of revelry, a market of sale, but an arena of contest, and a hall of doom. This is the inspiration of his [Longfellow's] Psalm of Life.'"Gilfillan.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be like heroes in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

Longfellow.

EXCELSIOR.1

"Onward and upward."

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner, with the strange device,
"Excelsior!"

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
"Excelsior!"

(1) "Excelsior' is Life and its Psalm personified. Longfellow has written in it his glowing hopes of the future, as well as his theory of the past. That figure climbing the evening Alps, in defiance of danger, of man's remonstrance, and the far deeper fascination of woman's love, is a type of man struggling, triumphing, purified by suffering, perfected in death."-Gilfillan.

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
"Excelsior!"

"Try not the pass!" the old man said,
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
"Excelsior!"

"O stay!" the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue
eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
"Excelsior!"

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche !"

This was the peasant's last good-night!
A voice replied, far up the height,
"Excelsior!"

At break of day, as heavenward,
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
"Excelsior!"

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,

Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
CC Excelsior!"

There, in the twilight, cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,

Excelsior!"

Longfellow.