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That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning
still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE SKATER.

My glad feet shod with the glittering steel
I was the god of the winged heel.

The hills in the far white sky were lost;
The world lay still in the wide white frost;

And the woods hung hushed in their long white dream

By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream.

Here was a pathway, smooth like glass,
Where I and the wandering wind might pass

To the far-off palaces, drifted deep,
Where Winter's retinue rests in sleep.

I followed the lure, I fled like a bird,

Till the startled hollows awoke and heard

A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang,
As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang;

And the wandering wind was left behind
As faster, faster I followed my mind;

Till the blood sang high in my eager brain,
And the joy of my flight was almost pain.

Then I stayed the rush of my eager speed
And silently went as a drifting seed, -

Slowly, furtively, till my eyes

Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise,

And the hair of my neck began to creep
At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep.

Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near.
In the deep of my heart I heard my fear ;、

And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued,
From the white, inviolate solitude.

CHARLES G. D. ROBERts.

THE JOLLY CURLERS.

OF a' the games that e'er I saw,
Man, callant, laddie, birkie, wean,
The dearest far aboon them a'
Was ay the witching channel-stane.

O for the channel-stane,

The fell-gude game, the channel-stane !
There's ne'er a game that e'er I saw
Can match auld Scotland's channel-

stane.

I've been at bridals unco glad,
Wi' courtin' lasses wondrous fain:
But what is a' the fun I've had,
Compare it wi' the channel-stane ?

Were I a sprite in yonder sky,
Never to come back again,
I'd sweep the moon and starlets by,
And play them at the channel-stane.

We'd boom across the Milky Way;
One tee should be the Northern Wain;
Another, bright Orion's ray;

A comet for the channel-stane.

O for the channel-stane,

The fell-gude game, the channel-stane !
There's ne'er a game that e'er I saw
Can match auld Scotland's channel-

stane.

JAMES HOGG.

WINTER ABROAD.

ON blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains,
While every work`of man is laid at rest,
Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport
And revelry dissolved; where mixing glad,
Happiest of all the train, the raptured boy
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine
Branched out in many a long canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care,
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep,
On sounding skates, a thousand different ways,
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along,
The then gay land is maddened all to joy.
Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow,
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds,
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to
raise

The manly strife, with highly blooming charms,
Flushed by the season, Scandinavia's dames,
Or Russia's buxom daughters, glow around.
JAMES THOMSON.

TRANSLATION.

(Lines written under a French Print showing Skaters.)

O'ER crackling ice, o'er gulphs profound,
With nimble glide the skaiters play;
O'er treacherous pleasure's flow'ry ground
Thus lightly skim, and haste away.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

A SKATING SONG.

AWAY! away ! our fires stream bright
Along the frozen river;

And their arrowy sparkles of frosty light
On the forest branches quiver.
Away, away! for the stars are forth,
And on the pure snows of the valley,
In a giddy trance the moonbeams dance -
Come, let our comrades rally!

Away! away! o'er the sheeted ice,

Away, away we go ;

On our steel-bound feet we move as fleet
As deer o'er the Lapland snow.

What though the sharp north winds are out,
The skater heeds them not

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'Midst the laugh and shout of the jocund rout, Grey winter is forgot.

Let others choose more gentle sports,
By the side of the winter hearth;
Or 'neath the lamps of the festal halls,

Seek for their share of mirth;

But as for me, away! away!

Where the merry skaters be

Where the fresh wind blows, and the smooth

ice glows,

There is the place for me.

EPHRAIM PEABODY.

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