47.--THE SCHOLAR.-Southey.

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My days among the Dead are past; around me I behold, where'er these casual eyes are cast, the mighty minds of old; my never-failing friends are they, with whom I converse day by day. 2 With them I take delight in weal, and seek relief in woe; and while I understand and feel how much to them I owe, my cheeks have often been bedew'd with tears of thoughtful gratitude. My thoughts are with the Dead; with them I live in long past years; their virtues love, their faults condemn, partake their hopes and fears, and from their lessons seek and find instruction with an humble mind. My hopes are with the Dead; anon my place with them will be, and I with them shall travel on through all Futurity; yet leaving here a name, I trust, that will not perish in the dust.

48.-IT SNOWS.-Mrs. Hale.

"It snows!" cries the School-boy, "Hurrah!" and his shout is ringing through parlour and hall; while swift as the wing of a swallow, he's out, and his playmates have answered his call. It makes the heart leap but to witness their joy; proud wealth has no pleasures, I trow, like the rapture that throbs in the pulse of the boy, as he gathers his treasures of snow. Then lay not the trappings of gold on thine heirs, while health, and the riches of nature, are theirs. "It snows!" sighs the Imbecile, "Ah!" and his breath comes heavy, as clogged with a weight; while, from the pale aspect of nature in death, he turns to the blaze of his grate; and nearer and nearer, his soft-cushioned chair is wheeled toward the lifegiving flame; he dreads a chill puff of the snow-burdened air, lest it wither his delicate frame. Oh! small is the pleasure existence can give, when the fear we shall die only proves that we live! 3 It snows!" cries the Traveller, "Ho!" and the word has quickened his steed's lagging pace; the wind rushes by, but its howl is unheard—unfelt the sharp drift in his face; for bright through the tempest his own home appeared-ay, though leagues intervened, he can see there's the clear, glowing hearth, and the table prepared, and his wife with her babes at her knee! Blest thought! how it lightens the grief-laden hour, that those we love dearest are safe from its power! 4"It snows!" cries the Belle, "Dear, how lucky!" and turns from her mirror to watch the flakes fall; like the first rose of summer, her dimpled cheek burns, while musing on concert and ball: there are visions of conquests, of splendour, and mirth, floating over each drear winter's day; but the tintings of Hope, on this storm-beaten earth, will melt like the snowflakes away. Turn, turn thee to Heaven, fair maiden, for bliss; that world has a pure fount ne'er opened in this. 566 It

snows!" cries the Widow, "Oh God!" and her sighs have stifled the voice of her prayer; its burden ye'll read in her tear-swollen eyes, on her cheek sunk with fasting and care. 'Tis night, and her fatherless ask her for bread; but "He gives the young ravens their food ;" and she trusts, till her dark hearth adds horror to dread, and she lays-on her last chip of wood. Poor sufferer! that sorrow thy God only knows; 'tis a most bitter lot to be poor-when it snows!

49.-THE HERMIT.-Beattie.

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove;
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove,
'Twas then, by the cave of the mountain reclin'd,
A Hermit his nightly complaint thus began;
Though mournful his numbers, his soul was resign'd—
He thought as a sage, but he felt as a man!
"Ah! why thus, abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why thus, lonely Philomel, flows thy sad strain ?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,

And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain:

Yet if pity inspire thee, oh! cease not the lay:

Mourn, sweetest companion! man calls thee to mourn:
Oh! soothe him whose pleasures like thine pass away—
Full quickly they pass, but they never return!

""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:

I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching your charms to restore,

Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,

Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save;

But when shall spring visit the mould'ring urn?

Oh! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?"

50.-A LAMENT.-Shelley.

2

10 World! O Life! O Time! on whose last steps I climb, trembling at that where I had stood before; when will return the glory of your prime ? No more- -O never more! Out of the day and night a joy has taken flight; fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, move my faint heart with grief, but with delight no more!—O never more !

51.-LIFE.-Mrs. Barbauld.

Life! I know not what thou art, but know that thou and I must part! and when, or how, or where we met, I own to me's a secret yet. Life; we've been long together, through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'tis hard to part when friends are dear, perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear: then, steal away-give little warning-choose thine own time; say not Good Night-but, in some brighter clime, bid me Good Morning.

52.-FEATS OF DEATH.-Mrs. Davidson.

I have passed o'er the earth in the darkness of night,

I have walked the wild winds in the morning's broad light;
I have paused o'er the bower where the infant lay sleeping,
And I've left the fond mother in sorrow and weeping.

My pinion was spread; and the cold dew of night,
Which withers and moulders the flowers in its light,
Fell silently o'er the warm cheek in its glow,
And I left it there blighted, and wasted, and low.
I paused o'er the valley; the glad sounds of joy
Rose soft through the mist, and ascended on high;
The fairest were there, and I paused in my flight,
And the deep cry of wailing broke wildly that night.

I stay not to gather the lone one to earth,

I

spare not the

young in their gay dance of mirth,

But I sweep them all on to their home in the grave,

I stop not to pity—I stay not to save.

53. THE EXILE OF CLOUDLAND.-Mackay.

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1 When I was a dweller in Cloudland, I dwelt in a rich and proud land; I was lord of the clime, I was king of the time; and the sun and the shower, the leaf and the flower, all came to my bidding in Cloudland. 2I was monarch supreme in my Cloudland, I was master of fate in that proud land; I would not endure that a grief without cure, a love that could end, or a false-hearted friend, should dwell for an instant in Cloudland. My Cloudland, my beautiful Cloudiand! I made thee a great and a proud land; with skies ever bright, and with hearts ever light; neither sorrow nor sin found a harbour within, and Love was the law of my Cloudland. 4 But, alas for myself and my proud land! there came Revolution in Cloudlaud; my people, untrue, broke my sceptre in two; and, false to their

5

vow, took the crown from my brow, and banished me far from my Cloudland. My Cloudland, my beautiful Cloudland! how happy was I in that proud land! all the wisdom I've won since my realm was undone, is but poor to repay what I lost in the day when I turned my last looks upon Cloudland. O, ye thoughts and ye feelings of Cloudland! ye died when I quitted that proud land! I wander discrowned, on a bare chilly ground! an exile forlorn, dreary, weary, and worn,―never more to revisit my Cloudland !

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54.-VILLAGE BELLS.-Carrington.

O merry are the village bells that sound with soothing chime

From the dim old tower, grown gray beneath the shadowy touch of time; And gaily are they borne along upon the summer air,

Telling of bridal happiness to the youthful and the fair;

They give a murmur of delight to earth, and sky, and seas,

That mingles with the running streams, and floats upon the breeze.

'Tis past, the bridal glee is past; those echoing peals are o'er;

But the sweet, the holy Sabbath comes-we hear them now once more.
With a message from the heavens of Love, a Voice that speaks to all,
Unto the temple of our God, unto His shrine they call.
Whether your home's in halls of state, or by the lowly dells,
Come forth and listen to the sounds of the hallowed Sabbath bells!
Ye tuneful records, yours it is to watch the pace of time,
And mark the footfalls of each year with deep and soothing chime;
Coming at midnight's silent hour, when all is dim and drear,
"Tis yours to breathe the last farewell of the sad expiring year;
And while we bid its hopes and fears, its fleeting hours adieu,
'Tis yours to hail with cheerful voice the birthday of the new.
And yet once more your music breaks upon my listening ear,
Though not the gaily sounding notes we love so well to hear;
Changed is your message to the heart, your joyous tone is fled;
Ye speak to us of buried hopes, a requiem for the dead!
Some home to-day is desolate, a soul from earth is free.
Mortal, the knell thou hearest now full soon may toll for thee!
O changeful bells, that swell'd but now the tide of human bliss,
What ministers of grief ye seem, in such an hour as this!
Say, is your knell a sorrowing one, for the lovely doomed to die,
Youth's early blush upon their cheek, its radiance in their eye?
Or do ye mourn in mockery for the beings frail as fair,

Whose lives, like golden evening clouds, have melted into air?

Yet such, alas! is human life; woe for the haughty breath!
To-day in health and power 'tis raised, to-morrow stilled in death.
One voice proclaims our joy and grief, our wishes, hopes, and fears;
The eye that brightly beams to-day, to-morrow dims with tears.

-A few short years, a few brief suns, in earthly homes we dwell,
Then life with all its dreams shall be but as that passing bell.

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55.-HYMN OF THE HEBREW MAID.-Sir W. Scott.

1 When Israel, of the Lord beloved, out from the land of bondage came, her father's God before her moved,—an awful guide,—in smoke and flame. By day, along the astonished lands the cloudy pillar glided slow; by night, Arabia's crimsoned sands returned the fiery column's glow. There rose the choral hymn of praise, and trump and timbrel answered keen; and Zion's daughters poured their lays, with priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze, forsaken Israel wanders lone; our fathers would not know Thy ways, and Thou hast left them to their own. But, present still, though now unseen, when brightly shines the prosperous day, be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen to temper the deceitful ray. And, oh! when stoops on Judah's path in shade and storm the frequent night, be Thou,-long-suffering, slow to wrath,—a burning and a shining light. 4 Our harps we left by Babel's streams, the tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn; nor censer round our altar beams, and mute are timbrel, trump, and horn: but Thou hast said,-"The blood of goat, the flesh of rams, I will not prize; a contrite heart, an humble thought, are mine accepted sacrifice."

56.-ANNA'S GRAVE.-Gifford.

I wish I was where Anna lies, for I am sick of lingering here;

And every hour Affection cries, "Go, and partake her humble bier.”
I wish I could! For when she died. I lost my all; and life has proved,
Since that sad hour, a dreary void—a waste, unlovely and unloved.

But who, when I am turned to clay, shall duly to her grave repair,
And pluck the ragged moss away, and weeds that have no business there?
And who, with pious hand, shall bring the flowers she cherished, snow-
drops cold,

And violets that unheeded spring, to scatter o'er her hallowed mould?
And who, while memory loves to dwell upon her name for ever dear,
Shall feel his heart with passion swell, and pour the bitter, bitter tear?
I did it; and would Fate allow, should visit still—should still deplore;
But health and strength have left me now, and I, alas! can weep no more.