To gladly, gleefully do your best

To blow her against the young man's breast?

Where he as gladly folded her in;
He kiss'd her mouth and dimpled chin.

Oh, Ellery Vane, you little thought,
An hour ago, when you besought
This country lass to walk with you,
After the sun had dried the dew,
What perilous danger you'd be in,
As she tied her bonnet under her chin.
NORA PERRY.

WHEN STARS ARE IN THE QUIET SKIES.

WHEN stars are in the quiet skies,

Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me then thy tender eyes,

As stars look on the sea!

For thoughts, like waves that glide by night,

Are stillest when they shine;
Mine earthly love lies hush'd in light
Beneath the heaven of thine.

There is an hour when angels keep

Familiar watch o'er men,

When coarser souls are wrapt in sleep

Sweet spirit, meet me then! There is an hour when holy dreams

Through slumber fairest glide; And in that mystic hour it seems Thou shouldst be by my side.

My thoughts of thee too sacred are
For daylight's common beam:

I can but know thee as my star,
My angel and my dream;
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea!

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

SHE'S GANE TO DWALL IN HEAVEN.

SHE'S gane to dwall in heaven, my lassie,
She gane to dwall in heaven;
Ye're owre pure, quo' the voice o' God,
For dwalling out o' heaven.

Oh, what'll she do in heaven, my lassie,

Oh, what'll she do in heaven? She'll mix her ain thoughts wi' angels'

sangs,

An' make them mair meet for heaven.

She was beloved by a', my lassie,

She was beloved by a',

But an angel fell in love wi' her, An' took her frae us a'.

Lowly there thou lies, my lassie,
Lowly there thou lies;

A bonnier form ne'er went to the yird,
Nor frae it will arise.

Fu' soon I'll follow thee, my lassie,
Fu' soon I'll follow thee;
Thou left me naught to covet ahin',
But took gudeness sel' wi' thee.

I look'd on thy death-cold face, my lassie,
I look'd on thy death-cold face;
Thou seem'd a lily new cut i' the bud,
An' fading in its place.

I look'd on thy death-shut eye, my lassie,
I look'd on thy death-shut eye;
An' a lovelier light in the brow of heaven
Fell Time shall ne'er destroy.

Thy lips were ruddy and calm, my lassie,
Thy lips were ruddy and calm;
But gane was the holy breath o' heaven,
That sing the evening psalm.

There's naught but dust now mine, lassie,

There's naught but dust now mine; My soul's wi' thee i' the cauld grave, An' why should I stay behin'?

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

SONNET.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no! it is an ever-fixèd mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

moan,

No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly, sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it, for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life de

cay,

SONNET.

WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my

fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art, and that man's

scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my

state

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely
knights;

Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have exprest
Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And for they look'd but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing;

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can

see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARK.

EPITHALAMIUM.

I SAW two clouds at morning,
Tinged by the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one;

I thought that morning cloud was bless'd,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents

Flow smoothly to their meeting, And join their course, with silent force, In peace each other greeting;

Calm was their course through banks of

green,

While dimpling eddies play'd between.
Such be your gentle motion,

Till life's last pulse shall beat;
Like summer's beam, and summer's stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease—
A purer sky, where all is peace.

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD,

SONNET.

SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate;

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd, And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or Nature's changing course, untrimm'd.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in

his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou

growest.

BRIDAL SONG.

To the sound of timbrels sweet
Moving slow our solemn feet,
We have borne thee on the road
To the virgin's blest abode;
With thy yellow torches gleaming,
And thy scarlet mantle streaming,
And the canopy above
Swaying as we slowly move.

Thou hast left the joyous feast,
And the mirth and wine have ceased;
And now we set thee down before
The jealously-unclosing door,
That the favor'd youth admits
Where the veilèd virgin sits
In the bliss of maiden fear,
Waiting our soft tread to hear,
And the music's brisker din
At the bridegroom's entering in-
Entering in, a welcome guest,
To the chamber of his rest.

HENRY HART MILMAN.