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More softly gleamed with shifting dyes,

And flushing drank the blissful sound. 26.

"The trees were piles of trembling flame,

The rocks like diamonds heaped the sod,

Each star a living eye became, And all, methought, were eyes of God. 27.

"The stream that shimmered down the hill

In waves of clearest crimson ran;
And that sweet singer, brightening still,
Grew lovelier far than man.

28.

"His words upon the glowing stream Sank melting down, and borne along Upon the mingled floods of dream All floated in accord to song. 29.

"The world was changed around me, all

To arches, rock, and tree were grown;
I stood amid a pillared hall,
Beneath a roof of carven stone.

30. "The windows beamed with many a hue

Of living forms in smooth array; Again those Angel hosts I knew, And through them shot the light of day. 31.

"They twinkling shone with radiance keen,

With eyes whose brightness dazzled mine;

And thousands round the walls were seen,

With hands upraised in prayer divine.

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Upon his daughter's grave he stares,
As if her form he thought would rise,
For all to him the semblance wears
Of mist that has his daughter's eyes.
17.

He heeds not passing beast nor men,
Nor wain at hand, nor distant plough;
Not e'en a burial draws his ken-
He is no longer Sexton now.
18.

But while, like some gray stump, he sits,

Dried up at root, and shorn of all, Still nature round him works and flits,

And fills and lights her festival.

19.

And e'en around his daughter's grave, Where Life for him in Death is cold, Fair growth goes on, and grasses wave, And coloured flies their revels hold.

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She strewed it o'er her mother's grave,
Its grace with Henry loved to note;
To Simon oft the flower she gave,
And fixed it in his Sunday coat.
24.

And now, with gradual change of heart,
He saw it peep above the sod
Where she was laid: it seemed to start
A special sign for him from God.
25.

An hour he sat, and marked it well,
Then rose and would behold it near;
His face no more was hard and fell,
No more the man was numbed and
drear.

26.

Another hour upon his staff

He leant, and pored above the grave;
He gave at length a silent laugh,
And seemed to grasp some purpose
brave.

27.

Then eager tow'rd his house he went,
And took his old and idle spade,
And round his fields with fixed intent
He walked, and many pauses made.
28.

And where below the hedge-row shade
A little tuft of primrose grew,
He dug it with his churchyard spade,
As if 'twere gold that thence he drew.
29.

And so with sods of yellow flowers
He filled his basket full and gay,
And back in evening's quiet hours
Towards the church he took his way.

30.

Beside the grave of Jane he stood,
And round it smoothly dug the ground;
With clods as many as he could,
He made a primrose border round.
31.

His work was done, and brightly sank
The day's last light upon his head;

The flowers that kindred beauty drank, And all was peace around the dead.

32.

And while by day the man had wrought,
And while by night awake he lay,
He felt within a flow of thought
Serene, that led him still to pray.
33.

Before him now his daughter came
In all her truth, as if alive;
Now child, now woman, still the same,
And made his purest heart revive.

34.

He thought how after Henry died She strove and toiled with earnest will, To each small task her heart applied, Though Death within was strengthening still.

35.

How week on week, 'mid humble calm, And zealous heed that would not sleep, She found her suffering's holiest balm In suffering's lowest silent deep.

36.

And so she wore away. The night In which she went to Henry's home Had seized her all with chilly blight, And warmth again would never come. 37.

She laid her down, but not to rest, For feverish dreams besieged her bed; And, with too many thoughts oppressed, It seemed that thought itself was fled. 38.

But now with steadfast voice and eye She met her father's wandering gaze, And told of visions bright and highStrange visions told in darkling phrase. 39.

Then swift she sank; she could not speak,

But lay a pale, unmoving clod, At last she said, with utterance weak, "Remembering me, remember God!"

40.

The thought of this, of her, of all That she to him had been before, Began within his heart to call, And open wide its inmost door.

41.

Though seventy winters gathering still
Had choked with ice some sacred cells,
He felt within him now a thrill
That thawed the solid icicles.
42.

From morning's burst to soothing eve
He loitered near the hallowed spot;
And though he never ceased to grieve,
The pangs of grief he now forgot.

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THOUGHTS ON ORPHEUS.

On, the blessing upon and through out the whole man, of the first real, warm, green light, and genial glow of Spring! Not as it is seen in towns, giving but a more brazen face to brick presumption, but as it steals gently upon the country, amid rocks and trees, into the deep shade, like a longmourned spirit returning re-embodied from the dead, bearing at once the twofold charm of earthly and Elysian loveliness. Such was Alcestis-Alcestis! the restored Alcestis!

We

have been reading the beautiful tale the volume of Euripides is open upon the now growing grass-our scholars, whose youthful, hopeful hearts, drew in from the gentle Greek generosity, and the sweet passion, even hence incipient, and soon ready to burst the bud, and open with the promise of perfect love our scholars have bounded away like young fawns stricken, not unconscious of the pleasing wound; and we, lying upon the sunny green, saw them upon the verge of the shade, the dark eye, as it were, of the deep dell before us-and a change came o'er them and us. Is it dream or vision? They have robed behind the trees, and bearded too-they present us with their tasks-we take them graciously.-So-they are signed, Euripides-Shakspeare - Alcestis. the Winter's Tale. Then two come up behind them, and look over their shoulders. We know them instinctively-Virgil and Ovid; and there leans the melancholy Orpheus beneath the caverned rock; and deep in its hollow are dimly seen Eurydice and Alcestis in parting embrace, and one with head averted, and in deeper shadow-Alcestis bending forwards, and half in a reflected mysterious light. Then came another, and took up the lyre which Orpheus had left unheeded beside him. He struck; it was Gluck's "Euridice:""Che farò senza Euridice? dóve andrò senza il mio ben?" Oh, the heart-piercing sounds! Orpheus started up and rushed into the deepest wood, and the voice of his moaning was lost in the indistinct howling of the dimly moving tigers that followed the incantation of his wo. Then did the measure change

to a dying sound; and Alcestis fell back in the shade, fainting upon the supporting arm of a scarce distinguishable figure; and the music was also Gluck's, "Le pur cara è a me la vita." We awoke the vision passed Oh, that it would return!

But here is the most substantive presence of it still before us. Here lie the sun-lit pages worthy of such illumination-Euripides, Virgil, Ovid, Orpheus, Shakspeare; and, apart, what is this modest volume? Elton! His tale, too, is of Orpheus-it is a dream. We must, however, keep up our character of Master, and hear our class. The tale of Orpheus is, doubtless, the original of the plays. And how simple the story is! Orpheus, a man-more, a poet-a husbaud-more, an adoring husbandloses his wife. Lyre in hand, he descends to the infernal regions, and by his art of song obtains the boon h seeks her restoration, but upon the condition that he must not look back in the passage to the upper world. He is overcome by his love, and regards not the condition. He looks back, and she is lost to him-for ever! Here all is tragic, for Orpheus himself is torn to pieces by the Bacchants whose love he scorns. How could this tale have arisen but from a dream? how often does the blessedness of sleep restore! Then the waking-the looking back-and what utter desolation is there of the heart! As Wordsworth says of his Lucy, "Oh! the difference to me," a fully exact translation of the passage in Euripides of the exclamation of the husband of Alcestis-Toλù yàg rò μécov.

Admetus. Ω σχῆμα δόμων, πως εἰσέλθω ;

Πῶς δ ̓ οἰκήσω, μεταπίπτοντος Δαίμονος ; οἵ μοι· πολὺ γὰρ τὸ μέσον.

It is a domestic reality, and has sunk deep in all its possible wo into many a fond heart-thence how forlorn! There is not among ancient fables one of deeper interest, nor set off with greater variety in the picturesque developement of its scenery and action. The dramatic pieces of the Greek,

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