CLXXVII. SAW in dream where met proud rivers twain or stain, Clear-eyed and paved with crystal, as to glass The merest speck that in the air might pass Above it; the other, from remoter springs, Soil'd with long travel and passionate outgoings, Full-vein'd and swoll'n with ore from the iron rock, Impetuous sped to meet it: at the shock Earth reeled, and heaven grew dark with sudden gloam Above the unpenetrable spray. What wonder, If men's eyes, baffled by the blinding foam, Saw not beyond, where, 'scaped the smoke and thunder, Through prosperous fields, bright blazon'd fold on fold, One clear strong stream their glorious course they hold. JAMES RHOADES. B BELOW THE OLD HOUSE. ENEATH those buttressed walls with lichen grey, Beneath the slopes of trees whose flickering. shade Darkens the pools by dun green velveted, The stream leaps like a living thing at play,— In haste it seems; it cannot, cannot stay! The great boughs changing there from year to year, And the high jackdaw-haunted eaves, still hear The burden of the rivulet,-Passing away! And sometime certainly that oak no more Will keep the winds in check; his breadth of beam Will go to rib some ship for some far shore ; Those coigns and eaves will crumble, while that stream Will still run whispering, whispering night and day, That over-song of Father Time,-Passing away! WILLIAM BELL SCOTT. PROJECTED SHADOWS. 3H, memory! ah, ruthless memory! Shall I not have one hour unfill'd for thee? Why wilt thou thus usurp the days to be, Unsatisfied with all thy realms that lie Hast thou not made the fleeting hours for me Sunless enough, that thou must flicker by The shrouding years, and hovering on the verge Of my horizon's blue, blot out the forms Of all my pleasant creatures of delight, Won with much wrestling from the haggard night,― And in their stead paint up a sky of storms And the stern Fury sworded with the scourge ? JOHN PAYNE. OUNT each affliction, whether light or grave, God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness: Grief should be Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles; to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. AUBREY DE VERE. |