All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied. On the right, Striden-edge* round the Red-tarn was

bending, And Catchedicam* its left verge was defending, One huge, nameless rock in the front was ascending, When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer

had died.

Dark green was the spot, 'mid the brown mountain

heather, Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay. Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slum

ber? When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst

thou start? How many long days and long weeks didst thou num

ber, Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart? And, 0, was it meet, that - no requiem read o'er him, No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him —

Unhonored the pilgrim from life should depart?

When a prince to the fate of a peasant has yielded

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall ; With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall;

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

187

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are

gleaming, In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are heaming, Far down the Irng aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb; When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in

stature, And draws his last sob by the side of his dam ; And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS. - Longfellow.

There is a reaper, tvhose name is Death,

And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

“Shall I have nought that is fair?” saith he;

“ Have nought but the bearded grain ? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,

I will give them all back again.”

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves ; It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves

My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,”

The reaper said, and smiled;
“Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where he was once a child.

“ They shall all bloom in fields of light,

Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,

These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,

The flowers she most did love ;
She knew she should find them all again

In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the green earth,

And took the flowers away.

THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. – Mrs. Cockburn.

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,

I've felt all its favors, and found its decay ; Sweet is her blessing, and kind her caressing,

But soon it is fled, - it is fled far away.

I've seen the forest adorned of the foremost

With flowers of the fairest, both pleasant and gay; Full sweet was their blooming, their scent the air per.

fuming; But now they are withered, and a' wede away.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE LAC DE GAUBE.

189

I've seen the morning with gold the hills adorning,

And loud tempest storming before the mid-day; I've seen Tweed's silver streams, glittering in the

sunny beams, Grow drumly* and dark, as he rolled on his way.

O fickle fortune! why this cruel sporting ?

O, why thus perplex us poor sons of a day? No more your smiles can cheer me, no more your

frowns can fear me, Since the flowers of the forest are a' wede away.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE LAC DE GAUBE. - Milnes.

The marriage-blessing on their brows,

Across the channel seas,
And lands of gay Garonne, they reach

The pleasant Pyrenees;
He into boyhood born again,

A child of joy and life;
And she a happy English girl,

A happier English wife.

They loiter not where Argeles,

The chestnut-crested plain,
Unfolds its robe of green and gold

In pasture, grape, and grain ;
But on and up, where nature's heart

Beats strong amid the hills,
They pause, — contented with the wealth

There is a lake, a small, round lake,

High on the mountain's breast;
The child of rains and melted snows,

The torrent's summer rest.
A mirror, where the veteran rocks

May glass their peaks and scars;
A nether sky where breezes break

The sunlight into starse

O, gayly shone that little lake,

And nature, sternly fair,
Put on a sparkling countenance

To greet that merry pair;
How light from stone to stone they leapt !

How trippingly they ran!
To scale the rock and gain the marge

Was all a moment's span !

“See, dearest, this primeval boat,

So quaint and rough, - I deem Just such an one did Charon ply

Across the Stygian stream ;
Step in, - I will your Charon be,

And you a spirit bold;
I was a famous rower once,

In college days of old.

“ The clumsy oar! the laggard boat!

How slow we move along!
The work is harder than I thought,

A song, my love, a song!
Then, standing up, she carolled out

So blithe and sweet a strain,
That the long-silent cliffs were glad

To peal it back again.