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Through Cheviot's valleys, to pluck the bright flowers,
Or chase, with young rapture, the birds through the bowers.
On my dreaming ear waters were murmuring still,
But the wild foreign river had shrunk to a rill;

And Kaha's dark mountains had melted away;

And the brown thorny desert, where antelopes stray, Had become a sweet glen, where the young lambs were racing,

And yellow-haired children the butterflies chasing;

And the meadows were gemm'd with the primrose and

gowan,

And the ferny braes fring'd with the hazel and rowan;
The foxglove looked out from the osiers dank,
And the wild-thyme and violet breath'd from the bank,
—And green fairy nooks 'mid the landscape were seen,
Half hid by the gray rocks that high o'er them lean,
Where the light birch, above, its loose tresses was waving;
And the willow, below, in the blue stream was laving
Its silvery garlands of soft downy buds ;

And the throstle sang blithe to his mate in the woods;
And the brood of the wild-duck plashed over the pool,
New fledged from their nest among well-cresses cool;
And trouts from the limpid stream lightly were springing,
And larks in the fleckered sky cheerily singing;
And down in the copsewood the cushat was cooing;
And o'er the brown moorland the huntsman hallooing;
The gray-plaided shepherd piped high on the fell;
And the milk-maiden sang as she sat on the well;
With the lowing of herds from the broom-blossomed lea;
The cuckoo's soft note from the old beechen-tree;
The waving of woods in the health-breathing gale;
The dash of the mill-wheel afar down the dale ;—
All these were around me: and with them there came
Sweet voices that called me aloud by my name,→
And looks of affection with innocent eyes,-

And light-hearted laughter,—and shrill joyous cries:
And I saw the mild features of all that were there,
Unaltered by years, and unclouded by care!

PICTURESQUE ITALIAN SCENE.

419

LEIGH HUNT.

PICTURESQUE ITALIAN SCENE.

VARIOUS the trees and passing foliage here-
Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper,
With briony between in trails of white,

And ivy, and the suckle's streaky light,

And moss, warm gleaming with a sudden mark,
Like flings of sunshine left upon the bark,

And still the pine, long-haired, and dark, and tall,
In lordly right, predominant o'er all.

Much they admire that old religious tree,

With shaft above the rest up-shooting free,

And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind,
Its wealthy fruit with rough mosaic rind.

At noisy intervals, the living cloud

Of cawing rooks breaks o'er them, gathering loud
Like a wild people at a stranger's coming;
Then hushing paths succeed, with insects humming,
Or ring-dove, that repeats his pensive plea,
Or startled gull, up-screaming tow'rds the sea.
But scarce their eyes encounter living thing,
Save, now and then, a goat loose wandering,
Or a few cattle, looking up aslant,

With sleepy eyes and meek mouths ruminant;
Or once, a plodding woodman, old and bent,
Passing with half-indifferent wonderment;
Yet, turning, at the last, to look once more;
Then feels his trembling staff, and onward as before.

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So ride they in delight through beam and shade ;-
Till many a rill now passed, and many a glade,
They quit the piny labyrinths, and soon

Emerge into the full and sheeted moon.

Chilling it seems; and pushing steed on steed,

They start them freshly with a homeward speed.

Then well-known fields they pass, and straggling cots,
Boy-storied trees, and passion-plighted spots;
And turning last a sudden corner, see

The square-lit towers of slumbering Rimini.
The marble bridge comes heaving forth below
With a long gleam; and nearer as they go,
They see the still Marecchia, cold and bright,
Sleeping along with face against the light.
A hollow trample now-a fall of chains-
The bride has entered-not a voice remains :--
Night and a maiden silence wrap the plains.

EDWIN ATHERSTONE.

THE OCEAN AT SUNRISE.

THE interminable ocean lay beneath,
At depth immense; not quite as before,
For a faint breath of air, e'en at the height
On which I stood scarce felt, played over it,

Waking innumerous dimples on its face,

As though 'twere conscious of the splendid guest
That e'en then touched the threshold of heaven's gates,
And smiled to bid him welcome. Far away

On either hand, the broad-curved beach stretched on;
And I could see the slow-paced waves advance

One after one, and spread upon the sands,

Making a slender edge of pearly foam

Just as they broke; then softly falling back,
Noiseless to me on that tall head of rock,
As it had been a picture, or descried
Through optic tube, leagues off.

A tender mist

Was round th' horizon and along the vales;
But the hill tops stood in a crystal air;

The cope of heaven was clear and deeply blue,

MORAL REFLECTIONS ON THE OCEAN.

And not a cloud was visible. Toward the east
An atmosphere of golden light, that grew
Momently brighter, and intensely bright,

421

Proclaimed th' approaching sun. Now, now he comes:
A dazzling point emerges from the sea:
It spreads; it rises; now it seems a dome
Of burning gold; higher and rounder now
It mounts; it swells; now, like a huge balloon
Of light and fire, it rests upon the rim
Of waters―lingers there a moment-then-
Soars up.

MARY ANNE BROWNE.

MORAL REFLECTIONS ON THE OCEAN.
FAREWELL, vast ocean! beautiful art thou

In calm and tempest.-Now calm reigns o'er thee,
Serene and quiet is thy glossy brow,
Thou glorious mirror of the Deity!
And how sublimely grand art thou, when he
In foaming characters, upon thy face

Writes his almighty anger! Thou, proud sea!
Art the wide page-the chosen tablet-place,

On which he chooses his tremendous wrath to trace.

I am not young--my life has pass'd its prime-
Perhaps I ne'er again shall tread this shore.
Life is a billow on the sea of time,

That, once burst, rises never more.

Perchance mine soon may melt amid the roar
Of tempests, rising on that boundless sea:
There will my grief and sorrow all give o'er,--
There shall life's joy or misery cease to be,
And I shall be resolved in vast eternity.

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THEN, Swift ascending from the azure wave,
He took the path that winded to the cave.
Large was the grot in which the nymph he found,
The fair-haired nymph, with every beauty crowned.
She sate and sung; the rocks resound the lays;
The cave was brightened with the rising blaze;
Cedar and frankincense, an odorous pile,

Flamed on the hearth, and wide perfumed the isle,
While she with work and song the time divides,
And through the loom the golden shuttle guides.
Without the grot a various sylvan scene
Appeared around, and groves of living green;
Poplars and alders, ever quivering, played,
And nodding cypress formed a grateful shade;
On whose high branches, waving with the storm,
The birds of broadest wing their mansion form;
The chough, the sea mew, and loquacious crow,
And scream aloft, and skim the deeps below.
Depending vines the delving caverns screen,
With purple clusters blushing through the green.
Four limpid fountains from the clefts distil;
And every fountain forms a separate rill,
In mazy, winding wanderings down the hill:
Where bloomy meads with vivid greens were crowned,
And glowing violets threw odours round--

* Selections from the poets of Greece and Rome do not come within the plan and object of this work. We have, however, been induced to insert three specimens from HOMER, VIRGIL, and THEOCRITUS, from which the English scholar may form some idea of the elegance and spirit with which the most distinguished of the ancient poets described the beauties of external nature.

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