There's a bell in Moscow;

While on tower and kiosk O
In St. Sophia

The Turkman gets,

And loud in air

Calls men to prayer,

From the tapering summit
Of tall minarets.

Such empty phantom
I freely grant them;
But there's an anthem
More dear to me,—

"T is the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

FATHER PROUT (FRANCIS MAHONY).

Swims round the purple peaks remote:

Round purple peaks
It sails, and seeks

Blue inlets, and their crystal creeks,
Where high rocks throw,

Through deeps below,

A duplicated golden glow.

Far, vague and dim,

The mountains swim: While on Vesuvius' misty brim, With outstretched hands, The gray smoke stands

O'erlooking the volcanic lands.

Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles;

And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Čalm Capri waits,

Her sapphire gates
Beguiling to her bright estates.

I heed not, if
My rippling skiff

Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; —
With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise.

With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Where Summer sings and never dies,—

O'erveiled with vines,

She glows and shines

Among her future oil and wines.

Her children hid

The cliffs amid,

Are gambolling with the gambolling kid;

Or down the walls,
With tipsy calls,

Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.

The fisher's child,

With tresses wild,

Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,
With glowing lips

Or

Sings as she skips,

gazes at the far-off ships.

Yon deep bark goes

Where traffic blows,

From lands of sun to lands of snows;

This happier one,

Its course is run

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

DICKENS IN CAMP.

ABOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;

The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health

:

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure
A hoarded volume drew,

And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure,
To hear the tale anew;

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of "Little Nell."

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,- for the reader
Was youngest of them all,-

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp, with "Nell," on English meadows
Wandered and lost their way.

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire;
And he who wrought that spell,-
Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills

With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths intwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,
This spray of Western pine.

BRET HARTE.

EVANGELINE ON THE PRAIRIE.

BEAUTIFUL was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,

Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the

river

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the

garden

Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions

Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian. Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings, As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of the oak-trees,

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers. Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens, Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship,

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them

"Upharsin."

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fireflies,

Wandered alone, and she cried, "O, Gabriel! O, my beloved!

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee! Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach

me?

Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie! Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands

around me!