A

Summer Longings.

H! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May, Waiting for the pleasant rambles Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles,

With the woodbine alternating,

Scent the dewy way.

Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May,-

Longing to escape from study,

To the young face fair and ruddy,

And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,

Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May,-

Sighing for their sure returning,

When the summer beams are burning, Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,

All the winter lay.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,

Throbbing for the May,

Throbbing for the seaside billows,

Or the water-wooing willows;

Where, in laughing and in sobbing,

Glide the streams away.

Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing,
Throbbing for the May.

KUBLA KHAN.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary,

Waiting for the May:

Spring goes by with wasted warnings, -
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings,
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary

Life still ebbs away;

Man is ever weary, weary,

Waiting for the May!

363

DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.

Kubla Khan.

N Xanadu did Kubla Khan

IN

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,

Through caverns measureless to man,

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Infolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 't would win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair.
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

ATHENS.

365

T

Athens.

From the Medea of Euripides.

'HE land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime, Wooes the deep silence of sequestered bowers,

And warriors, matchless since the first of time,

Rear their bright banners o'er unconquered towers!

Where joyous youth, to Music's mellow strain,
Twines in the dance with nymphs forever fair;
While spring eternal on the lilied plain

Waves amber radiance through the fields of air!

The tuneful Nine (so sacred legends tell)

First waked their heavenly lyre these scenes among ; Still in your greenwood bowers they love to dwell; Still in your vales they swell the choral song.

But there the tuneful, chaste, Pierian fair,

The guardian nymphs of green Parnassus, now Sprung from Harmonia, while her graceful hair Waved in bright auburn o'er her polished brow!

ANTISTROPHE.

Where silent vales, and glades of green array,
The murmuring wreaths of cool Cephisus lave,
There, as the muse hath sung, at noon of day,
The Queen of Beauty bowed to taste the wave ;

And blest the stream, and breathed across the land
The soft sweet gale that fans yon summer bowers;
And there the sister Loves, a smiling band,

Crowned with the fragrant wreaths of rosy flowers!

"And go," she cries, "in yonder valleys rove, With Beauty's torch the solemn scenes illume; Wake in each eye the radiant light of love,

Breathe on each cheek young passion's tender bloom! "Intwine, with myrtle chains, your soft control, To sway the hearts of Freedom's darling kind ! With glowing charms enrapture Wisdom's soul, And mould to grace ethereal Virtue's mind?"

Translated by THOMAS CAMPBELL.

H

The Happy Life.

OW happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care

Of public fame, or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:

Who hath his life from rumors freed,

Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend;