Look-how 'round his straining throat
Grace and shifting beauty float;
Sinewy strength is in his reins,

But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arab bred,
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of a race divine!
And yet,- he was but friend to one,
Who fed him at the set of sun,

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By some lone fountain fringed with green:
With him, a roving Bedouin,

He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),
And died untamed upon the sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert stands.
BARRY CORNWALL.

The Glory of Motion.

THREE twangs of the horn, and they're all out of cover!

Must brave you, old bull-finch, that's right in the way!

A rush, and a bound, and a crash, and I'm over!

They're silent and racing and for'ard away; Fly, Charley, my darling!

low;

Away and we fol

There's no earth or cover for mile upon mile; We're winged with the flight of the stork and the swallow;

The heart of the eagle is ours for a while.

The pasture-land knows not of rough plough or harrow!

The hoofs echo hollow and soft on the sward; The soul of the horses goes into our marrow; My saddle's a kingdom, and I am its lord: And rolling and flowing beneath us like ocean, Gray waves of the high ridge and furrow glide

on,

Richer, redder, never ran

Through the boasting heart of man.
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire, -
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
Or O'Brien's blood itself!

He, who hath no peer, was born, Here, upon a red March morn;

Before us, beneath us, behind us, are gone.

O puissant of bone and of sinew availing,

On thee how I've longed for the brooks and the showers!

O white-breasted camel, the meek and unfailing,

To speed through the glare of the long desert hours!

Now in memory comes my mother,
As she used long years agone,
To regard the darling dreamers
Ere she left them till the dawn.
Oh! I see her leaning o'er me,

As I list to this refrain
Which is played upon the shingles
By the patter of the rain.

Then my little seraph sister,

With her wings and waving hair, And her star-eyed cherub brotherA serene, angelic pairGlide around my wakeful pillow With their praise or mild reproof, As I listen to the murmur

Of the soft rain on the roof.

And another comes, to thrill me

With her eyes' delicious blue; And I mind not, musing on her,

That her heart was all untrue!

I remember but to love her

With a passion kin to pain, And my heart's quick pulses vibrate To the patter of the rain.

Art hath naught of tone or cadence That can work with such a spell In the soul's mysterious fountains, Whence the tears of rapture well, As that melody of Nature,

That subdued, subduing strain Which is played upon the shingles By the patter of the rain.

COATES KINNEY.

Rain on the Roof.

WHEN the humid shadows hover Over all the starry spheres, And the melancholy darkness Gently weeps in rainy tears, What a bliss to press the pillow

Of a cottage-chamber bed, And to listen to the patter

Of the soft rain overhead!

Every tinkle on the shingles
Has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start,

And a thousand recollections

Weave their air-threads into woof,

As I listen to the patter

Of the rain upon the roof.

Invocation to Rain in Summer.

O GENTLE, gentle summer rain,
Let not the silver lily pine,
The drooping lily pine in vain
To feel that dewy touch of thine,
To drink thy freshness once again,
O gentle, gentle summer rain !

In heat the landscape quivering lies;
The cattle pant beneath the tree;
Through parching air and purple skies
The earth looks up, in vain, for thee;

For thee, for thee, it looks in vain,

O gentle, gentle summer rain!

Come, thou, and brim the meadow streams, ⚫ And soften all the hills with mist, O falling dew! from burning dreams

By these shall herb and flower be kissed; And Earth shall bless thee yet again, O gentle, gentle summer rain!

WILLIAM C. BENNETT.

The Cloud.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain;

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night, 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under, is fettered the thunder;
It struggles and howls at fits.

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,

Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The spirit he loves, remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As, on the jag of a mountain crag

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle, alit, one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings;

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And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of heaven above,
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
By the midnight breezes strewn;

And, wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm river, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and

swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Drinking.

THE thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are,
With constant drinking, fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need to drink),
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So filled that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy sun (and one would guess
By's drunken fiery face no less),

Drinks up the sea, and, when he 'as done,
The moon and stars drink up the sun :
They drink and dance by their own light;
They drink and revel all the night.
Nothing in nature's sober found,
But an eternal "health" goes round.
Fill up the bowl then, fill it high-
Fill all the glasses there; for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
Translation of ABRAHAM COWLEY.

ANACREON. (Greek.)

The Midges Dance aboon the Burn.

THE midges dance aboon the burn;
The dews begin to fa';

The pairtricks down the rushy holm

Set up their e'ening ca'.

Now loud and clear the blackbird's sang

Rings through the briery shaw,
While, flitting gay, the swallows play
Around the castle wa'.

Beneath the golden gloamin' sky

The mavis mends her lay;

The red-breast pours his sweetest strains,
To charm the ling'ring day;
While weary yeldrins seem to wail
Their little nestlings torn,
The merry wren, frae den to den,
Gaes jinking through the thorn.

The roses fauld their silken leaves,
The foxglove shuts its bell;
The honeysuckle and the birk

Spread fragrance through the dell.
Let others crowd the giddy court
Of mirth and revelry,

The simple joys that Nature yields
Are dearer far to me.

ROBERT TANNAHILL.

The Wandering Wind.

THE Wind, the wandering Wind
Of the golden summer eves—
Whence is the thrilling magic
Of its tones amongst the leaves?
Oh! is it from the waters,

Or from the long tall grass?
Or is it from the hollow rocks
Through which its breathings pass?

Or is it from the voices

Of all in one combined,

That it wins the tone of mastery?

The Wind, the wandering Wind!

No, no! the strange, sweet accents

That with it come and go, They are not from the osiers, Nor the fir-trees whispering low.

They are not of the waters,

Nor of the caverned hill; "Tis the human love within us

That gives them power to thrill: They touch the links of memory Around our spirits twined,

And we start, and weep, and tremble, To the Wind, the wandering Wind?

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.

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Ode to the West Wind.

I.

being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark, wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds, like flocks, to feed in air)
With living hues and odors, plain and hill:
Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

II.

Thou, on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors; from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!

III.

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers,
Quivering within the waves' intenser day,

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind,

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.