The mariner' sees the pětrel meet
The fathomlèss' waves with steady feet,
And a tireless wing and a dauntless breast,
Without a home or a hope of rest.

4. So, mid the contest and toil of life,

My soul, when the billows of rage and strife
Are tossing high, and the heavenly blue
Is shrouded by vapors of somber hue—
Like the pětrel, wheeling o'er foam and spray,
Onward and upward pursue thy way!

PARK BENJAMIN.

III.

42. THE FALCON.

HE falcon' is a noble bird,

is stirr'd,

THE

He'll seek the eagle, though he run
Into his chamber near the sun.
Never was there brute or bird,
Whom the woods or mountains heard,
That could force a fear or care
From him, the Ar'ab of the air!

2. To-day he sits upon ǎ wrist,

Whose purple veins a queen has kiss'd,
And on him falls a sterner eye
Than he could face where'er he fly,
Though he scale the summit cold

4

Of the Grimsel, vast and old

Though he search yon sunless stream,
That threads the forest like a dream.

3. Ah! noble soldier! noble bird!

Will your names be ever heard
Ever seen in future story,

Crowning it with deathless glory?

1 Măr in er, seaman; sailor.

which is often trained to catch other

2 'Făth' om less, that can not be birds, or game.

fathomed, or sounded.

* Grim' sel, a mountain of Swit

'Falcon, (fá'kn), a bird of prey, zerland, 7126 feet above the sea.

Peace, ho! the master's eye is drawn
Away unto the bursting dawn!
Arise, thou bird of birds, arise,
And seek thy quarry' in the skies!

IV.

B. W PROCTER.

43. TO THE SKYLARK.

IRD of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberlèss,'

Sweet be thy matin' o'er moorland and lea!*

6

Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

O, to ǎbide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay, and loud,

Far in the downy cloud;

Love gives it energy-love gave it birth!

Where, on thy dewy wing

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell' and fountain sheen,"

O'er moor and mountain green,

Quarry, (kworry), here means game flown at by a hawk.

other thing in its leading qualities, and so used to represent it. The

› Blithesome, (bilth'sům), gay; skylark is called the emblem of hap merry; cheerful.

piness because it is so cheerful and

3 Căm' ber less, without anxiety, joyous. care, or trouble.

• Mǎt' in, a morning song. 'Lea, a meadow or grass land; an extensive plain.

Em'blem, a type cr figure; a thing thought to resemble some

7

Fell, a barren or stony hill; & ridge or chain of hills.

8

Sheen, light; splendor; great brightness.

'Heralds, proclaims; announces 10 Glōam' ing, twilight.

1

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

O, to abide in the desert with thee!

W

V.

44. TO A WATERFOWL.

HITHER, 'midst falling dew,

JAMES HOGG.

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,'
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way!

1 2. Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats ǎlong.

3. Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

4. There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathlèss coast,—
The desert and illimitable' air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

5. All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

Steps of Day.-The poet has sacrificed rhetorical rule to poetical beauty in the second line of this exquisitely beautiful piece. Rhetoricians might, perhaps, ask how the "heavens" could glow with a step. But the true poet (and if ever there was a true poet, William Cullen Bryant is one) looks deeper than

rhetorical rule. The picture here presented of Day impressing his gorgeous colors, even with his very footsteps, on the heavens, is more grand and suggestive than any other expression he could have used.

' Il lim' it a ble, without limit or measure; not capable of being limited; boundless.

6. And soon that toil shall end :

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy shelter'd nest.

7. Thou'rt gone! the abyss' of heaven
Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart :

8. He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread ălōne,

Will lead my steps ǎright.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT,

SECTION XI.

I.

45. THE LANDSMAN'S SONG.

H, who would be bound to the barren sea,
If he could dwell on land-

Where his step is ever both firm and free,
Where flowers arise, like sweet girls' eyes,
And rivulets sing, like birds in spring?—
For me-I will take my stand
On land, on land!

Forever and ever on solid land!

2. I've sailed on the riotous, roaring sea,
With an undaunted band:

Yet my village home more pleaseth me,

With its valleys gay, where maidens stray,

And its grassy mead, where the white flocks feed

And so I will take my stand,

On land, on land!

Forever and ever on solid land!

1 A býss', a gulf; a bottomless depth; hence, any deep or immeasurable space; often, hell, or the bottomless pit.

3. Some say they could die on the salt, salt sea!
(But have they been loved on land?)
Some rave of the ocean in drunken glee—

Of the music born on a gusty morn,

When the tempèst is waking, and billows are breaking,
And lightning flashing, and the thick rain dashing,

And the winds and the thunders shout forth the sea wondersSuch things may give joy to a dreaming boy

TH

B. W. PROCTER.

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!

Without a mark, without a bound,

It runnèth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

2. I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be ;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go ;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

3. I love, oh, how I love to ride

On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempèst tune,
And tells how goëth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.

4. I never was on the dull, tame shōre,

But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seekèth its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea!