TIME.

WHY sitt'st thou by that ruined hall,
Thou aged carle, so stern and gray?
Dost thou its former pride recal,

Or ponder how it passed away?

"Know'st thou not me ? the Deep Voice cried, "So long enjoyed, so oft misusedAlternate, in thy fickle pride,

Desired, neglected, and accused?

"Before my breath, like blazing flax,
Man and his marvels pass away;
And changing empires wane and wax,
Are founded, flourish, and decay.

"Redeem thine hours-the space is brief-
While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,

And measureless thy joy or grief,

When Time and thou shalt part for ever!"

WALTER SCOTT.

INSTABILITY OF AFFECTION.

ALAS! how light a cause may move

Dissension between hearts that love!

Hearts that the world in vain had tried,

And sorrow but more closely tied;

That stood the storm, when waves were rough,

Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea

When heav'n was all tranquillity!

A something light as air-a look,

A word unkind or wrongly taken—
Oh! love that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this hath shaken.
And ruder words will soon rush in

To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till, fast declining one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds-or like the stream
That smiling left the mountain's brow
As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet, e'er it reached the plain below,
Breaks into floods that part for ever.

THOMAS MOORE.

THE IDLE SHEPHERD BOYS.

The valley rings with mirth and joy,
Among the hills the echoes play
A never, never-ending song,
To welcome in the May.

The magpie chatters with delight;
The mountain raven's youngling brood
Have left the mother and the nest;
And they go rambling east and west
In search of their own food;

Or through the glittering vapours dart,
In very wantonness of heart.

Beneath a rock, upon the grass,
Two boys are sitting in the sun :
Boys that have had no work to do,
Or work that now is done.

On pipes of sycamore they play
The fragments of a Christmas hymn;
Or with that plant which in our dale
We call stag-horn, or fox's tail,
Their rusty hats they trim;

And thus, as happy as the day,
Those shepherds wear the time away.

Along the river's stony marge
The sand-lark chants a joyous song;
The thrush is busy in the wood,
And carols loud and strong.

A thousand lambs are on the rocks,
All newly born; both earth and sky
Keep jubilee; and more than all,
Those boys, with their green coronal,
They never hear the cry,

That plaintive cry! which up the hill
Comes from the depth of Dungeon-Ghyll.

Said Walter, leaping from the ground, "Down to the stump of yon old yew We'll for our whistles run a race;"

Away the shepherds flew.

They leapt they ran-and when they came.

Right opposite to Dungeon-Ghyll,

Seeing that he should lose the prize,

"Stop!" to his comrade, Walter cries

He stopped with no good will:

Said Walter, then, "Your task is here,

"Twill baffle you for half a year.

"Cross, if you dare, where I shall crossCome on, and in my footsteps tread!"

The other took him at his word,

And followed as he led.

It was a spot which you may see
If ever you to Langdale go;

Into a chasm a mighty block

Hath fallen, and made a bridge of rock:

The gulf is deep below;

And in a basin black and small

Receives a lofty waterfall.

With staff in hand, across the cleft
The challenger pursued his march ;
And now, all eyes and feet, hath gain'd
The middle of the arch.

When list! he hears a piteous moan—
Again! his heart within him dies-
His pulse is stopp'd, his breath is lost,
He totters, pallid as a ghost;

And, looking down, espies

A lamb, that in the pool is pent
Within that black and frightful rent.

The lamb had slipt into the stream,
And, safe without a bruise or wound,
The cataract had borne him down
Into the gulf profound.

His dam had seen him when he fell;
She saw him down the torrent borne,

And while, with all a mother's love,
She from the lofty rocks above

Sent forth a cry forlorn,

The lamb, still swimming round and round,

Made answer to that plaintive sound.

When he had learn'd what thing it was,
That sent this rueful cry: I ween,
The boy recover'd heart, and told
The sight which he had seen.
Both gladly now deferr'd their task;
Nor was there wanting other aid—
A poet, one who loves the brooks
Far better than the sage's books,
By chance had thither stray'd;
And there the helpless lamb he found
By those huge rocks encompass'd round.

He drew it gently from the pool,

And brought it forth into the light:

The shepherds met him with his charge

An unexpected sight!

Into their arms the lamb they took,

Said they, "He's neither maim'd nor scarr'd."

Then up the steep ascent they hied,

And placed him at his mother's side;
And gently did the bard

Those idle shepherd boys upbraid,

And bade them better mind their trade.

WORDSWORTH.

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

THE stately homes of England!

How beautiful they stand, Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.