If that new world hath hill and stream,
And breezy bank, and quiet dell,
If forest murmur, waters gleam,

And wayside flowers their story tell,
Thy hand ere this has pluck'd the reed
That waver'd by the wooded shore;
Its prisoned soul thy fingers freed,
To float melodious evermore.

So seems it to my musing mood,

So runs it in my surer thought, That much of beauty, more of good,

For thee the rounded years have wrought; That life will live, however blown

Like vapor on the summer air;

That power perpetuates its own;
That silence here is music there.

ROSSITER JOHNSON.

INVITATION TO IZAAK WALTON
WHILST in this cold and blustering clime,

Where bleak winds howl and tempests roar,

We pass away the roughest time

Has been of many years before;

Whilst from the most tempestuous nooks
The chillest blasts our peace invade,
And by great rains our smallest brooks
Are almost navigable made;

Whilst all the ills are so improved
Of this dead quarter of the year,

That even you, so much beloved,

We would not now wish with us here:

In this estate, I say, it is

Some comfort to us to suppose

That in a better clime than this

You, our dear friend, have more repose;

And some delight to me the while,

Though Nature now does weep in rain,
To think that I have seen her smile,
And haply may I do again.

If the all-ruling Power please
We live to see another May,
We 'll recompense an age of these
Foul days in one fine fishing-day.

We then shall have a day or two,
Perhaps a week, wherein to try
What the best master's hand can do
With the most deadly killing fly.
A day with not too bright a beam;
A warm, but not a scorching sun;
A southern gale to curl the stream;

And, master, half our work is done.
Then, whilst behind some bush we wait
The scaly people to betray,

We 'll prove it just, with treacherous bait,
To make the preying trout our prey ;
And think ourselves in such an hour
Happier than those, though not so high,
Who, like leviathans, devour

Of meaner men the smaller fry.

This, my best friend, at my poor home,
Shall be our pastime and our theme;
But then - should you not deign to come,
You make all this a flattering dream.

CHARLES COTTON.

TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE

COME, when no graver cares employ,
Godfather, come and see your boy:

Your presence will be sun in winter,
Making the little one leap for joy.
For, being of that honest few
Who give the Fiend himself his due,

Should eighty thousand college councils
Thunder "Anathema," friend, at you;
Should all our churchmen foam in spite
At you, so careful of the right,

Yet one lay hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight;

Where, far from noise and smoke of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown

All round a careless-order'd garden
Close to the ridge of a noble down.

You'll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous under a roof of pine:

For groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blast of winter, stand;

And further on, the hoary Channel
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand;
Where if below the milky steep
Some ship of battle slowly creep,

And on through zones of light and shadow
Glimmer away to the lonely deep,

We might discuss the Northern sin
Which made a selfish war begin;

Dispute the claims, arrange the chances,
Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win;

Or whether war's avenging rod
Shall lash all Europe into blood;

Till you should turn to dearer matters,
Dear to the man that is dear to God:

How best to help the slender store,
How mend the dwellings, of the poor;
How gain in life, as life advances,
Valor and charity more and more.

Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet
Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet;

But when the wreath of March has blossom'd,
Crocus, anemone, violet,

Or later, pay one visit here,

For those are few we hold as dear;

Nor pay but one, but come for many,

Many, and many a happy year.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

TO VICTOR HUGO

VICTOR in poesy! Victor in romance!
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears!
French of the French and lord of human tears!
Child-lover, bard, whose fame-lit laurels glance,
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance
Beyond our strait their claim to be thy peers!
Weird Titan, by thy wintry weight of years
As yet unbroken! Stormy voice of France,
Who does not love our England, so they say;
I know not! England, France, all men to be,
Will make one people, ere man's race be run;

And I, desiring that diviner day,

Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy

To younger England, in the boy, my son.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELE

BRATION

[MAY 28, 1879.]

I

ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us,
Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim,
Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us
That blush into life at the sound of thy name.

The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers –
I hear the old song with its tender refrain ;
What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers!
What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain!

The home of my childhood comes back as a vision

Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room! 'Tis a morning of May, when the air is Elysian The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom

We are clustered around the " Clementi" piano
There were six of us then there are two of us now;
She is singing the girl with the silver soprano
How "The Lord of the Valley" was false to his vow :

"Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling

--

Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled "The Exile" laments while the night-dews are falling "The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old. But ah, those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence ! Around us such raptures celestial they flung That it seem'd as if Paradise breathed its quintessence Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung! Long hush'd are the chords that my boyhood enchanted As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirr'd,

Yet still with their music is memory haunted

And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard.

I feel like the priest to his altar returning

The crowd that was kneeling no longer is there; The flame has died down, but the brands are still burning, And sandal and cinnamon sweeten the air.

II

The veil for her bridal young Summer is weaving
In her azure-domed hall with its tapestried floor,
And Spring the last tear-drops of May-dew is leaving
On the daisy of Burns and the shamrock of Moore.
How like, how unlike, as we view them together,
The song of the minstrels whose record we scan
One fresh as the breeze blowing over the heather,
One sweet as the breath from an odalisque's fan!
Ah, passion can glow 'mid a palace's splendor;
The cage does not alter the song of the bird,
And the curtain of silk has known whispers as tender
As ever the blossoming hawthorn has heard.

No fear lest the step of the soft-slipper'd Graces

Should fright the young Loves from their warm little nest, For the heart of a queen, under jewels and laces, Beats time with the pulse in the peasant-girl's breast! Thrice welcome each gift of kind Nature's bestowing! Her fountain heeds little the goblet we hold ; Alike, when its musical waters are flowing,

The shell from the seaside, the chalice of gold.

The twins of the lyre to her voices had listened;
Both laid their best gifts upon Liberty's shrine;
For Coila's loved minstrel the holly-wreath glisten'd;
For Erin's the rose and the myrtle entwine.

And while the fresh blossoms of Summer are braided
For the sea-girdled, stream-silver'd, lake-jewell'd isle,
While her mantle of vendure is woven unfaded,

While Shannon and Liffey shall dimple and smile,
The land where the staff of Saint Patrick was planted,

Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore,

The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted,

Shall wreathe her bright harp with the garlands of Moore !

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

A FRIEND'S GREETING

[To J. G. WHITTIER, ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.] SNOW-BOUND for earth, but summer-soul'd for thee, Thy natal morning shines:

Hail, friend and poet. Give thy hand to me,

And let me read its lines!

For skill'd in fancy's palmistry am I,

When years have set their crown;