Joy, lady, is the spirit and the power
Which, wedding nature to us, gives in dower
A new earth and new heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous
cloud-

We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms our ear or sight

All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light.

VI.

There was a time when, though my path was rough,

This joy within me dallied with distress; And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence fancy made me dreams of happi

ness.

For hope grew round me like the twining vine;

And fruits and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth, Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;

But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, My shaping spirit of imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural manThis was my sole resource, my only plan ; Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

VII.

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind

Reality's dark dream!

I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a

scream

Of agony, by torture lengthened out,

687

Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad lutanist! who, in this month of showers, Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,

Mak'st devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,

The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among!

Thou actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty poet, e'en to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about?

'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold.

But hark! there is a pause or deepest silence! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings—all is over

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud;

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay:

'Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild

Not far from home, but she hath lost her

way;

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

VIII.

'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep;

Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!

Visit her, gentle sleep, with wings of heal ing!

And may this storm be but a mountainbirth;

without!

Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree,

Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,

dwelling,

Silent as though they watched the sleeping earth!

With light heart may she rise,
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes—

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice! To her may all things live, from pole to poleTheir life the eddying of her living soul!

O simple spirit, guided from above! Dear lady! friend devoutest of my choice! Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

SAMUEL TAYLor Coleridge.

SIR MARMADUKE.

SIR MARMADUKE was a hearty knightGood man! old man!

He's painted standing bolt upright,

With his hose rolled over his knee; His periwig 's as white as chalk, And on his fist he holds a hawk; And he looks like the head Of an ancient family.

His dining-room was long and wide— Good man! old man!

His spaniels lay by the fireside;

And in other parts, d'ye see, Cross-bows, tobacco pipes, old hats, A saddle, his wife, and a litter of cats; And he looked like the head

Of an ancient family.

And why I'm so plump the reason I tellWho leads a good life is sure to live well. What baron or squire,

Or knight of the shire,

Lives half so well as a holy friar !

After supper of heaven I dream,
But that is a pullet and clouted cream;
Myself, by denial, I mortify—
With a dainty bit of a warden pie;
I'm clothed in sackcloth for my sin-
With old sack wine I'm lined within;
A chirping cup is my matin song,

And the vesper's bell is my bowl, ding dong.
What baron or squire,

Or knight of the shire,

Lives half so well as a holy friar

JOHN O'KEEFS

THE AGE OF WISDOM.

Ho! pretty page, with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber's shear,
All your wish is woman to win;
This is the way that boys begin-

Wait till you come to forty year.

Curly gold locks cover foolish brains; Billing and cooing is all your cheer—

Gillian's dead! God rest her bier

How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married; but I sit here,
Alone and merry at forty year,

Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

TO PERILLA.

А, my Рerilla! dost thou grieve to see
Me, day by day, to steal away from thee?
Age calls me hence, and my gray hairs bid

come,

And haste away to mine eternal home;
'T will not be long, Perilla, after this
That I must give thee the supremest kiss.
Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and bring
Part of the cream from that religious spring,
With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet;
That done, then wind me in that very sheet
Which wrapped thy smooth limbs when thou
didst implore

The gods' protection, but the night before;
Follow me weeping to my turf, and there
Let fall a primrose, and with it a tear.
Then lastly, let some weekly strewings be
Devoted to the memory of me;

Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep

Still in the cool and silent shades of sleep.

ROBERT HERRICK.

THE ONE GRAY HAIR.

THE wisest of the wise

Listen to pretty lies,

And love to hear them told;

Doubt not that Solomon

Listened to many a one

Some in his youth, and more when he grew old.

I never sat among

The choir of wisdom's song,

But pretty lies loved I

As much as any king

When youth was on the wing,

And (must it then be told?) when youth had

quite gone by.

Alas! and I have not

The pleasant hour forgot,

When one pert lady said"O, Landor! I am quite Bewildered with affright;

689

I see (sit quiet now!) a white hair on you! head!"

Another, more benign,

Drew out that hair of mine,

And in her own dark hair
Pretended she had found
That one, and twirled it round.

Fair as she was, she never was so fair.

WALTER SAvage LandoR

THE LAST LEAF.

I SAW him once before,
As he passed by the door:
And again

The pavement-stones resound
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of time Cut him down,

Not a better man was found By the crier on his round Through the town.

But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets

So forlorn;

And he shakes his feeble head. That it seems as if he said, "They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has pressed

In their bloom;

And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said— Poor old lady! she is dead

Long ago—

That he had a Roman nose,

And his cheek was like a rose In the snow.

But now his nose is thin,

And it rests upon his chin

Like a staff;

And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.

I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin

At him here.

But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches-and all that, Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,

Let them smile, as I do now,
Au the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

MEMORY.

l'ue mother of the muses, we are taught, Is memory; she has left me; they remain, And shake my shoulder, urging me to sing About the summer days, my loves of old. "Alas! alas!" is all I can reply. Memory has left with me that name alone, Harmonious name, which other bards may sing,

But her bright image in my darkest hour Comes back, in vain comes back, called or uncalled.

Forgotten are the names of visitors
Ready to press my hand but yesterday;
Forgotten are the names of earlier friends

While streams the evening sunshine on quie wood and lea,

I stand and calmly wait till the hinges tur for me.

The tree tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze's flight,

A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night;

I hear the woodthrush piping one mellow descant more,

And scent the flowers that blow when th heat of day is o'er.

Behold the portals open, and o'er the thresh old, now,

There steps a weary one with a pale and furrowed brow;

His count of years is full, his allotted task wrought;

He passes to his rest from a place that needs

him not.

In sadness then I ponder how quickly fleets the hour

Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power.

I muse while still the woodthrush sings down the golden day,

And as I look down and listen the sadness

wears away.

Again the hinges turn, and a youth, depart ing, throws

Are fresh as ever to mine ear and eye;

ly goes;

Remembrance of me, the word "Dear" alone Hangs on the upper verge, and waits in vain. A blessing wert thou, O oblivion,

her hair,

Moves mournfully away from amidst the young and fair.