'I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while "Ha ha!" quoth he," full plain I see 'And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land! The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat, 6.66 O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" The Hermit cross'd his brow, "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee sayWhat manner of man art thou ? " 'Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free. 'Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, 'I pass, like night, from land to land; I know the man that must hear me : To him my tale I teach. -What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bridesmaids singing are: 'O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been So lonely 'twas, that God Himself 'O sweeter than the marriage-feast, "Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company !— 'To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends, '-Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 'He prayeth best, who loveth best -The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone and now the Wedding-Guest He went like one that hath been stunn'd, And is of sense forlorn : A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn. Coleridge. 49 50 The Snare I HEAR a sudden cry of pain! But I cannot tell from where. But I cannot tell from where Making everything afraid, And I cannot find the place! And I cannot find the place I am searching everywhere! James Stephens. The Reverie of Poor Susan At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years: Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot, and has heard In the silence of morning the song of the Bird. 'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. Lothbury] oth pronounced as in both. Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail ; And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade, 51 A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below. WE wander'd to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean's foam, The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, The smile of Heaven lay; It seem'd as if the hour were one Sent from beyond the skies, Which scatter'd from above the sun A light of Paradise. II We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude And soothed by every azure breath Now all the tree-tops lay asleep, Like green waves on the sea, As still as in the silent deep The ocean woods may be. III How calm it was !-the silence there The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less Of the white mountain waste, A spirit interfused around, A thrilling, silent life,- |