Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard
And songs when toil is done,
From cottages whose smoke unstirr'd
Curls yellow in the sun.

Star of love's soft interviews,
Parted lovers on thee muse';
Their remembrancer in Heaven
Of thrilling vows thou art,
Too delicious to be riven

By absence from the heart.

T. Campbell

CCLXIII

DATUR HORA QUIETI

'HE sun upon the lake is low,

ΤΗ

The wild birds hush their song,

The hills have evening's deepest glow, Yet Leonard tarries long.

Now all whom varied toil and care

From home and love divide,

In the calm sunset may repair
Each to the loved one's side.

The noble dame on turret high,
Who waits her gallant knight,
Looks to the western beam to spy
The flash of armour bright.

The village maid, with hand on brow
The level ray to shade,

Upon the footpath watches now

For Colin's darkening plaid.

Now to their mates the wild swans row,

By day they swam apart,

And to the thicket wanders slow

The hind beside the hart.

The woodlark at his partner's side
Twitters his closing song -

All meet whom day and care divide,
But Leonard tarries long!

Sir W. Scott

CCLXIV

TO THE MOON

RT thou pale for weariness

A of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth, And ever-changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?

P. B. Shelley

A

CCLXV

WIDOW bird sate mourning for her Love

Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

P. B. Shelley

A

CCLXVI

TO SLEEP

FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by

One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;

I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie
Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first utter'd from my orchard trees,
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
W. Wordsworth

O°

CCLXVII

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM

UR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd,

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet Vision I saw ;

And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array
Far, far, I had roam'd on a desolate track :
'T was Autumn, and sunshine arose on the way

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

Ì flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part;

My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart.

'Stay stay with us!—rest!—thou art weary and worn!'

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay ;· But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. T. Campbell

I

CCLXVIII

A DREAM OF THE UNKNOWN

DREAM'D that as I wander'd by the way

Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,

And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint ox-lips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd May, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold, Fairer than waken'd eyes behold.

any

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,

And starry river-buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours
Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay,
I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come
That I might there present it—O! to Whom?
P. B. Shelley