And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an increasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald :—how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,

Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent!

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows

More like the fountain of an infant sea

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes

Of a new world, than only thus to be

Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,

With many windings, through the vale :-Look back! Lo, where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track,

Charming the eye with dread,—a matchless cataract.

BYRON.

[From Stanzas to the Po.]

RIVER, that rollest by the ancient walls,

Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me;

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read

The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

What do I say--a mirror of my heart?

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? Such as my feelings were and are, thou art ;

And such as thou art were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them,—not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Borne on our old unchanged career, we move :
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I-to loving one I should not love.

BYRON.

The Shannon.

IVER of billows, to whose mighty heart

RIVE

The tide-wave rushes of the Atlantic sea;

River of quiet depths, by cultured lea,

Romantic wood, or city's crowded mart;

River of old poetic founts, which start

From their lone mountain-cradles, wild and free, Nursed with the fawns, lulled by the wood-lark's glee,

And cushat's hymeneal song apart:

River of chieftains, whose baronial halls,

Like veteran warders, watch each wave-worn steep, Portumna's towers, Bunratty's royal walls,

Carrick's stern rock, the Geraldine's gray keep— River of dark mementoes! must I close

My lips with Limerick's wrong, with Aughrim's woes? SIR AUBREY DE VERE.

The Rhine.

WE'VE sailed through banks of green,

Where the wild waves fret and quiver,

And we've down the Danube been,

The dark, deep, thundering river! We've threaded the Elbe and Rhone,

The Tiber and blood-dyed Seine,

And have watched where the blue Garonne
Goes laughing to meet the main :

But what is so lovely, what is so grand,
As the river that runs through Rhine-land?

On the Rhine river were we born,

Midst its flowers and famous wines, And we know that our country's morn With a treble-sweet aspect shines. Let other lands boast their flowers,

Let other men dream wild dreams,

Let them hope they've a land like ours,
And a stream like our stream of streams:
Yet what is half so bright or so grand

As the river that runs through Rhine-land?

Are we smit by the blinding sun
That fell on our tender youth?
Do we, coward-like, shrink and shun
The thought-telling touch of Truth?
On our heads be the sin, then, set!
We'll bear all the shame divine:

But we'll never disown the debt

That we owe to our noble Rhine!

O, the Rhine! the Rhine! the broad and the grand,
Is the river that runs through Rhine-land!

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.

For a Streamlet.

`RAVELLER, note! Although I seem

TRAVE

But a little sparkling stream,

I come from regions where the sun
Dwelleth when his toil is done;
From yon proud hills in the West,
Thence I come, and never rest,

Till (curling round the mountain's feet)
I find myself 'mid pastures sweet,
Vernal, green, and ever gay;
And then I gently slide away,
A thing of silence,-till I cast
My life into the sea at last!

B. W. PROCter.

Arethusa.

ARETHUSA arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains,—
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,

Shepherding her bright fountains.

She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks

Streaming among the streams ;

Her steps paved with green

The downward ravine

Which slopes to the western gleams:
And gliding and springing

She went, ever singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep;

The Earth seemed to love her,

And Heaven smiled above her,

As she lingered towards the deep.

Then Alpheus bold

On his glacier cold

With his trident the mountains strook;

And opened a chasm

In the rocks ;-with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind

It concealed behind