Heads and shoulders clear outside,
And fair young faces all ablush;

Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding the self-same way,

Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

Listen closer. When you have done

With woods and cornfields and grazing herds, A lady, the loveliest ever the sun

Looked down upon, you must paint for me;
Oh, if I only could make you see

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul and the angel's face
That are beaming on me all the while!
I need not speak these foolish words;
Yet one word tells you all I would say,-
She is my mother; you will agree
That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee
You must paint, sir, one like me,–
The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise:

At ten years old he went to sea,
God knoweth if he be living now,
He sailed in the good ship Commodore,-
Nobody ever crossed her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.

Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more,
Since that old ship went out of the bay

With my great-hearted brother on her deck: I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was toward me all the way. Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee; That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea!

Out in the field one summer night

We were together, half afraid

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,—
Loitering till after the low little light
Of the candle shone through the open door,
And, over the haystack's pointed top,
All of a tremble, and ready to drop

The first half-hour the great yellow star,
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see

Propped and held in its place in the skies By the fork of a tall red mulberry tree, Which close in the edge of our flax field grew, Dead at the top,- just one branch full Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, From which it tenderly shook the dew

Over our heads when we came to play

In its handbreadth of shadow day after day.

Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,— The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, Not so big as a straw of wheat:

The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,

But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.

At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?
If you can, pray have the grace
To put it solely in the face

Of the urchin that is likest me;

I think 'twas solely mine, indeed:
But that's no matter,- paint it so.
The eyes of our mother take good heed
Looking not on the nest full of eggs,

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, But straight through our faces down to our lies, And oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise, I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though A sharp blade struck through it.

You, sir, know,

That you on the canvas are to repeat

Things that are fairest, things most sweet,

Woods and cornfields and mulberry tree,

The mother, the lads, with their bird, at her knee;

But, oh, that look of reproachful woe!

High as the heavens your name I'll shout,

If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER

THOMAS MOORE

NOTE TO THE PUPIL. — Thomas Moore was born in Dublin in 1779. He was a most prolific writer, and no poet has expressed himself more gracefully; but it is questionable if he has written much that will prove to be a part of the enduring literature of the English language. His most elaborate work is "Lalla Rookh." Perhaps after some minor poems, his "Irish Melodies" will be longest read. Light satire and humor were his characteristic veins. Among his satires the most noted are "The Fudge Family in Paris" and "The Two Penny Post Bag." Moore received large sums of money for his works, and his society was much sought after, so that he knew little of the privations that most authors have suffered. He died in 1852.

IS the last rose of summer

'TIS

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,

No rose bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden

Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love's shining circle

The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

MARCO BOZZARIS

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

NOTE TO THE PUPIL.- - Fitz-Greene Halleck was born at Guilford, Conn., in 1790. He had only the schooling his native town afforded. At the age of fifteen he entered his uncle's store as clerk, from here he went to a counting house in New York, then to a similar position with John Jacob Astor, in all forty-two years of mercantile life, and yet a poet. His most noted poems are those that follow. He was an intimate friend of Joseph Rodman Drake, and together they wrote the "Croaker" papers, a series of clever satires.

T midnight, in his guarded tent,

AT

The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power;

In dreams, through camp and court he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams, his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet ring;

Then press'd that monarch's throne a king:
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,

As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,

True as the steel of their tried blades,