[From The Twelve Months-July.]

QUIET, in the reaches of the river

Blooms the sea-poppy all alone;

Hidden by the marshy sedges ever,

Who knows its golden cup is blown?
Who cares if far-distant billows,

Rocking the great ships to sea,
Underneath the tassels of the willows,

Rock the sea-poppy and the bee?

E. ARNOLD.

[From Sohrab and Rustum.]

UT the majestic river floated on,

BUT

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,

Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,

Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon ;-he flow'd

Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,

Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin.
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league.
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles-
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,
A foil'd circuitous wanderer-till at last

The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

[From Drifting Down.]

DRIFTING down in the grey-green twilight,

O, the scent of the new-mown hay!

The oars drip in the mystic shy light,
O, the charm of the dying day!

While fading flecks of bright opalescence
But faintly dapple a saffron sky,

The stream flows on with superb quiescence,
The breeze is hushed to the softest sigh.
Drifting down in the sweet still weather,
O, the fragrance of fair July!

Love, my love, when we drift together,
O, how fleetly the moments fly!

Drifting down on the dear old River,
O, the music that interweaves !
The ripples run and the sedges shiver,
O, the song of the lazy leaves !

And far-off sounds-for the night so clear is-
Awake the echoes of by-gone times;

The muffled roar of the distant weir is

Cheered by the clang of the Marlow chimes.

S

Drifting down in the cloudless weather,
O, how short is the summer day!
Love, my love, when we drift together,
O, how quickly we drift away!

J. ASHBY-STERRY.

The Brook.

BROOK, happy brook, that glidest through my dell ;

That trippest with soft feet across the mead;

That, laughing on, a mazy course dost lead,
O'er pebble beds, and reeds, and rushy swell;
Go by that cottage where my love doth dwell.
Ripple thy sweetest ripple, sing the best

Of melodies thou hast; lull her to rest
With such sweet tales as thou dost love to tell.
Say, "One is sitting in your wood to-night,
O maiden rare, to catch a glimpse of you ;

A shadow fleet, or but a window-light,

Shall make him glad, and thrill his spirit through."
Brook, happy brook, I pray, go lingering;

And underneath the rosy lattice sing.

THOMAS ASHE.

[From The Human Tragedy, Act i.]

THEN would a freshet runnel cross their track, Low-purling to itself for secret bliss,

Now pattering onwards, now half-turning back,

To give the smooth round pebbles one more kiss :

Here travelling straight as haste, there, with changed tack, Meandering on in utter waywardness.

Now diving under tangled grass, and then

With frolic laugh bubbling to sight again.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

[From The Human Tragedy, Act i.]

A RIVER journeyeth past its ancient walls,

Whereon hoar ivy thrives and night-owls build.

Its only chant is now a waterfall's,

Which swells, and falls, and swells, as it is filled

With music from the hills. The cuckoo calls Throughout moist May. When August woods are stilled In sleepy sultriness, the stock-dove broods

Low to itself. The rest is solitude's.

But many a mile before the river sweeps,
With gentle curve, around the Abbey gray,

Straight through dense woods in whose umbrageous deeps
A mystic muteness lurks, it keeps its way.
Now through a throttling gorge it gurgling leaps,
Now flows, slow, smooth, silent as those that pray,
'Twixt sylvan sanctuaries, whose green aisles slope
Up to bare moors, with the bare sky for cope.

A. AUSTIN.

[From The Human Tragedy, Act iii.]

THROUGH scarred Chiusa's choked ravine

Fierce-foaming Dora flows,

Whose sons have ever fearless been

As its sun-gazing snows.

Past Casentino's fruitful vale

See smiling Arno glide,

To where fair Florence, famed in tale,
Glows like a youthful bride.
'Mong green Venafro's olive slopes
Volturno twists and winds,

And, laughing, triples all the hopes
Of Capua's happy hinds.
'Tis only Tiber-Tiber-crawls,

Sullen from swamp to sea.

A. AUSTIN.

[From The Glories of our Thames.]

MANY a river song has sung and dearer made the

names

Of Tweed and Ayr and Nith and Doon, but who has sung our Thames?

And much green Kent and Oxfordshire and Middlesex it

shames

That they've not given long since one song to their own noble Thames.