THE MORNING-LAND.

KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl in her bloom?
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute,
Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,
In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,
And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye;

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?

'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?

Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell

Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

Modern Poets.

14

Lord Byron.

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THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

-The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew,
"The man would be a boy again,
And be a husband too!"

"And is there nothing yet unsaid
Before the change appears?
Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years!"

Why, yes; for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;

I could not bear to leave them all;
I'll take my girl-and-boys!

The smiling angel dropped his pen,—
"Why, this will never do;

The man would be a boy again,

And be a father too!"

And so I laughed:-my laughter woke
The household with its noise,-

And wrote my dream, when morning broke,

To please the gray-haired boys.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOURGLASS.

A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime
Of Arab deserts brought,

Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
The minister of Thought.

How many weary centuries has it been
About those deserts blown!

How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite
Trampled and passed it o'er,

When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight
His favourite son they bore.

Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,
Crushed it beneath their tread;

Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air
Scattered it as they sped;

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth
Held close in her caress,

Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith
Illumed the wilderness;

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms
Pacing the Dead Sea beach,

And singing slow their old Armenian psalms
In half-articulate speech;

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SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOURGLASS.

Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate
With westward steps depart;

Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,
And resolute in heart!

These have passed over it, or may have passed!
Now, in this crystal tower
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,
It counts the passing hour.

And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand; -
Before my dreamy eye

Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky.

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,
This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread.

And onward, and across the setting sun,
Across the boundless plain,

The column and its broader shadow run,
Till thought pursues in vain.

The vision vanishes! These walls again
Shut out the lurid sun,

Shut out the hot immeasurable plain;

The half-hour's sand is run!

H. W. Longfellow.

THE KNIGHT'S TOMB.

WHERE is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?-
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!

The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone, and the birch in its stead is grown.--
The Knight's bones are dust,

And his good sword rust;—

His soul is with the saints, I trust.

S. T. Coleridge.

THE ISLE.

THERE was a little lawny islet,
By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven:

And its roof was flowers and leaves
Which the summer's breath enweaves,

Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,—

Each a gem engraven:

Girt by many an azure wave

With which the clouds and mountains pave

A lake's blue chasm.

P. B. Shelley.