.There is a voice, to other ears unknown,
Like echoed music answering to its key.
The dungeoned captive hath a tale to tell,
Of every insect in his lonely cell,
And these poor frailties have a simple tone,
That breathes in accents sweet to me alone.
THE ARCTIC LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS
BY W. C. BRYANT.
GONE is the long long winter night,
Look, my beloved one!
How glorious, through his depths of light,
The willows, waked from winter's death,
Give out a fragrance like thy breath-
The summer is begun!
Aye 't is the long bright summer day:
Hark, to that mighty crash!
The loosened ice-ridge breaks away-
The smitten waters flash.
Seaward the glittering mountain rides,
While, down its green translucent sides,
The foamy torrents dash.
See, love, my boat is moored for thee,
By ocean's weedy floor-
The pettrel does not skim the sea
More swiftly than my oar.
We'll go where, on the rocky isles,
Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles
Beside the pebbly shore.
Or, bide thee where the poppy blows,
With wind-flowers frail and fair,
While I, upon this isle of snows,
Seek and defy the bear;
Fierce though he be, and huge of frame,
This arm his savage strength shall tame,
And drag him from his lair.
When crimson sky and flamy cloud
Bespeak the summer fled,
And snows, that melt no more, enshroud
The valleys white and dead,
I'll build of ice thy winter home,
With glistening walls and lucid dome,
And floor with skins bespread.
The white fox by thy couch shall play;
And, from the frozen skies,
The meteors of a mimic day
Shall flash upon thine eyes.
And 1-for such thy vow-meanwhile,
Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile,
Till that long midnight flies.
STRANGE! that one lightly whispered tone
Is far, far sweeter unto me,
Than all the sounds that kiss the earth,
Or breathe along the sea;
But Lady, when thy voice I greet,
Not heavenly music seems so sweet.
I look upon the fair blue skies,
And nought but empty air, I see;
But when I turn me to thine eyes,
It seemeth unto me
Ten thousand angels spread their wings
Within those little azure rings.
The lily hath a softer leaf,
Than ever western wind hath fanned,
But thou shalt have the tender flower,
So I may take thy hand;
That little hand to me doth yield
More joy than all the broidered field.
O lady! there be many things
That seem right fair, below, above.
But sure not one among them all,
Is half so sweet as love-
Let us not pay our vows alone,
But join two altars both in one.
BY PARK BENJAMIN.
SWEET Fancy, golden-pinioned bird,
Once left awhile his starry nest,
To float upon the breeze that stirred
The plumage of his glistening breast. Sometimes in gem-hung caves delaying, And then through spicy forests straying, He wandered 'mid those blessed isles That dimple Ocean's cheek with smiles; He dallied with the merry wave,
And, diving through the glassy water, Brought, in his beak, from its shell-cave,
A pearl, Circassia's loveliest daughter,
In the rich clustering of her hair,
Might blush with very pride to wear!
Then tired of sport like this, he flew
Along the deep in beauty sleeping,
'To that sweet clime, whose sky of blue
Is, with its chastened splendors, steeping
A land, whose river's rosy tide
Is blushing like a virgin bride,
Whose mountains high and emerald vales
Are kissed by incense-laden gales.
And there, o'er ruins ivy-wreathed,
He heard pure music sweetly breathed;
O'er moss-decked arch and broken shrine,
He saw their ancient glory shine.
Yet here, amid his favorite bowers,
Where once he dearly loved to dwell,
In this delicious land of flowers,
Where Memory, with magic spell,
Creates new forms of joy and light,
He could not stay his restless wing;
But, shaking thence the dew-drops bright,
He plucked the first red rose of spring;
Then, blending with the heavenly blue,
Like arrowy gleam, away he flew.
Where next did gold-plumed Fancy roam?
He sought the bright star's brightest ray
That decks his own celestial home,
And bore it in his glance away.
Then, when the sunset richly burned,
Unto the earth once more he turned;
And, as his wing grew tired and weak,
He found a lovely lady's bower,
And on her lip, and o'er her cheek
Softly suffused the pearl and flower;
Then in her dark eye's brilliancy
He shot the star-gleam from his own,
And, charmed as much as bird could be,
Flew back to his far, starry throne!
This happened years ago-but now,
Each pretty maiden, when she hears
Of locks that cluster round a brow,
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