"Sure never," he thought, "was a creature so rare,
So docile, so true, as my excellent mare;

Lo, here now I stand," and he gazed all around,
"As safe and as steady as if on the ground;
Yet how had it been, if some traveller this way,
Had, dreaming no mischief, but chanced to cry 'Hey'?"

He stood with his head in the mulberry tree,
And he spoke out aloud in his fond revery;

At the sound of the word the good mare made a push,
And down went the priest in the wild-brier bush.
He remember'd too late, on his thorny green bed,
Much that well may be thought cannot wisely be said.

SONG FOR THE TENDER

BEECH AND

THE SAPLING OAK

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

OR the tender beech and the sapling oak,
That grow by the shadowy rill,

You may cut down both at a single stroke,
You may cut down which you will.

But this you must know, that as long as they grow,
Whatever change may be,

You can never teach either oak or beech
To be aught but a greenwood tree.

A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA

A

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM

WET sheet and a flowing sea

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail,

And bends the gallant mast
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.

Oh for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze,
And white waves heaving high-
And white waves heaving high, my lads,
The good ship tight and free;
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;

And hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud-
The wind is piping loud, my boys,

The lightning flashing free;
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.

MY AIN COUNTREE

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM

HE sun rises bright in France,

THE

And fair sets he;

But he has tint the blythe blink he had
In my ain countree.
Oh, gladness comes to many,

But sorrow comes to me,
As I look o'er the wide ocean
Το my ain countree.

Oh, it's nae my ain ruin

That saddens aye my e'e,

But the love I left in Galloway,
Wi' bonnie bairnies three.
My hamely hearth burnt bonnie,
An' smiled my fair Marie:
I've left my heart behind me
ain countree.

In my

The bud comes back to summer,

And the blossom to the bee; But I'll win back-oh never, Το my ain countree.

I'm leal to the high heaven,

Which will be leal to me, An' there I'll meet ye a' sune Frae my ain countree.

THE SEA

BARRY CORNWALL (B. W. PROCTER)

THE Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!

T

The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the Sea! I'm on the Sea!

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, O! how I love, to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I lov'd the great Sea more and more,