His dying words, but when I
reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity.

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes, long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long.

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love and virgin
shame;

And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved: she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stept;
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms, She pressed me with a meek embrace;

And, bending back her head, looked up,

And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous bride.
COLERIDGE.

THE LILY OF NITHSDALE.

SHE'S gane to dwall in heaven, my lassie,

She's gane to dwall in heaven; Ye're ower pure, quoth the voice of God,

For dwalling out of heaven!

O what'll she do in heaven, my lassie?

O what'll she do in heaven? She'll mix her ain thoughts with angels' sangs,

An' make them mair meet for heaven.

Low there thou lies, my lassie,

Low there thou lies;

A bonnier form ne'er went to the yird,

Nor frae it will arise!

Fu' soon I'll follow thee, lassie,
Fu' soon I'll follow thee;
Thou left me nought to covet ahin',
But took gudness' self wi' thee.

I looked on thy death-cold face, my lassie,

I looked on thy death-cold face; Thou seemed a lilie new cut i' the bud,

An' fading in its place.

I looked on thy death-shut eye, my lassie,

I looked on thy death-shut eye;

An' a lovelier light in the brow of heaven

Fell time shall ne'er destroy.

Thy lips were ruddy and calm, my lassie,

Thy lips were ruddy and calm; But gane was the holy breath of heaven

To sing the evening psalm.

There's nought but dust now mine, lassie,

There's nought but dust now mine;

My saul's wi thee in the cauld grave, An' why should I stay behin'? CUNNINGHAM.

THE PEASANT'S RETURN.

AND passing here through evening dew,

He hastened happy to her door,
But found the old folk only two
With no more footsteps on the floor
To walk again below the skies-
Where beaten paths do fall and rise.

For she wer gone from earthly eyes
To be a-kept in darksome sleep
Until the good again do rise
A joy to souls they left to weep.
The rose were dust that bound her
brow;

The moth did eat her Sunday cape;
Her frock were out of fashion now;
Her shoes were dried up out of
shape.

WILLIAM BARNES.

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove;

O no; it is an ever-fixèd mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

When, for the crowning vernal sweet,
Among the slopes and crags I meet
The pilot's pretty daughter.

Round her gentle, happy face,
Dimpled soft, and freshly fair,
Danced with careless ocean grace
Locks of auburn hair:

As lightly blew the veering wind, They touched her cheeks, or waved behind,

Unbound, unbraided, and unlooped; Or when to tie her shoe she stooped, Below her chin the half-curls drooped,

And veiled the pilot's daughter.

Rising, she tossed them gayly back, With gesture infantine and brief, To fall around as soft a neck

As the wild-rose's leaf. Her Sunday frock of lilac shade (That choicest tint) was neatly made, And not too long to hide from view The stout but noway clumsy shoe, And stockings' smoothly-fitting blue,

That graced the pilot's daughter.

With look half timid and half droll, And then with slightly downcast

eyes, And blush that outward softly stole, Unless it were the skies

Whose sun-ray shifted on her cheek, She turned when I began to speak; But 'twas a brightness all her own That in her firm light step was

shown,

And the clear cadence of her tone;
The pilot's lovely daughter.

Were it my lot (the sudden wish)
To hand a pilot's oar and sail,
Or haul the dripping moonlight mesh,
Spangled with herring-scale;
By dying stars, how sweet 'twould be,
And dawn-blow freshening the sea,
With weary, cheery pull to shore,
To gain my cottage home once more,
And clasp, before I reach the door,

My love, the pilot's daughter.

This element beside my feet

Allures, a tepid wine of gold; One touch, one taste, dispels the cheat

'Tis salt and nipping cold: A fisher's hut, the scene perforce