I have just wakened from a darling dream, And fain would sleep again. I have been roving In a sweet isle, and would return once more. I have just come, methinks, from Fairyland, And grieve for its sweet landscapes. Wake, my soul ! Thy holiday is over, playtime done, And a stern master calls thee to thy task. How shall I ever go through this rough world? Since first the giants of old time descended, This voice so buoyant shall be all unstrung, grow music smooth-topped less; These hands must totter on a smooth-topped staff That whirled so late the ball-club vigorously; In loving curls about their taper fingers, They come back scarred and battered who | And he's as fond and faithful as when by hale and blooming went, yonder stile But the Red Cross flag waves o'er them still, I wept and blessed and bade him go: I know and 'tis not soiled nor rent. With clarions and with cymbals their merry march draws nigh: it by his smile As he looked up to the window with proud and glistening eye. Come, Lily, to the lattice come, and see the Come quick, my true and bravest love, belads go by. "Here's Walter in his bravery, so proud— and well he may ! Dear fellow! but he's handsome now, the bitterest tongue must say. As stern as any lion in the battle-field is he; Now gentle as a mother young with her infant on her knee: Sure from the fiercest enemy he'll never flinch nor fly. fore of joy I die." She ceased her song. Hark! footsteps on the stair, And well-known voices pleading at the door. "Ah, truant! why so long?" That maiden fair Greets one withal, too blest to gaze once more On his pale brow. Her sister doth not care Her soldier-love to chide, but with an air Look, Lily, from the lattice look! How Signs the proud man to sit, a suppliant, at her Half grave authority, half mockery sweet, 66 gayly they go by! Nay, how the sturdy ringers make the old belfry reel! There's triumph and there's welcome home in every lusty peal; And see the girls with garlands, a mad and merry crowd, And the old folk swarming to their doors and thanking Heaven aloud, And the little tottering children, who clap their hands and cry, 'Hurrah! the glorious victory! The gallant Twelfth go by!' feet. LITERARY SOUVENIR. THE LOVER'S CHOICE. SWEET, I blame you not, for mine the fault was had I not been made of common clay, I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day. From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song, Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong. "I can bide here no longer: I'll down into Had my lips been smitten into music by the the street; kisses that but made them bleed, Oh, not in that thronged noisy place should You had walked with Bicè and the angels on such as we two meet; that verdant and enamelled mead. I had trod the road which Dante treading Rudderless we drift athwart a tempest; and saw the suns of seven circles shine; when once the storm of youth is past, Ay! perchance had seen the heavens open- Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death, ing as they opened to the Florentine. a silent pilot, comes at last. BIRD? OSCAR WILDE. And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms WHERE IS YOUR HAME, MY BONNIE brush the burnished bosom of the dove, Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read the story of our love Would have read the legend of my passion, known the bitter secret of my heart, Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are fated now to part; For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the canker-worm of truth, And no hand can gather up the fallen with ered petals of the rose of youth. Yet I am not sorry that I loved you-ah! what else had I. a boy, to do?— For the hungry teeth of Time devour, and the silent-footed years pursue. W HERE is your hame, my bonnie bird Sae lightsome an' sae gay? Your sweet voice pours amain, That answering sings again?" A hame on yonder tree- That my bonnie mate may hear, Sin I missed ye at the dawn? Oh, did ye gae the game to track Or hear the laverock sing, Or did ye gae the deer to chase Or plover on the wing?""Oh, I hae been to the field, gudewife, Where the warriors brave are sleeping, And sadly ower each clay-cauld breast Their little ones are weeping. I didna track the fallow-deer Nor chase the wingèd prey, But I drove the vulture frae the dead "And why gae ye sae sad, my heart, An' fill the woods wi' sighing, An' why think ye o' the battle-field Where the clay-cauld dead are lying? An' why beneath the auld aik tree Do ye pour the saut, saut tear, I wiled thee to a lonely haunt. The shore was all deserted And we wandered there alone, From the willow-beaten strand; Far, far we left the seagirt shore Endeared by childhood's dream The mountain-torrent roared, Beyond those mountains now are all That e'er we loved or knew— The long-remembered many And the dearly-cherished few; The home of her we value And the grave of him we mourn |