1. On thy fair bosom, silver lake
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,
And round his breast the ripples break,
As down he bears before the gale.
2. On thy fair bosom, waveless stream!
The dipping paddle echoes far,
And flashes in the moonlight gleam,
And bright reflects the polar star.
3. The waves along thy pebbly shore,
As blows the north wind, heave their foam,
And curl around the dashing oar,
As late the boatman hies him home.
4. How sweet, at set of sun, to view
The golden mirror spreading wide,
And see the mist of mantling blue
Float round the distant mountain's side!
5. At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below;
And swift she cuts, at highest noon,
Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow.
6. On thy fair bosom, silver lake!
Oh! I could ever sweep the oar,
When early birds at morning wake,
And evening tells us toil is o'er.
The Soldier's Dream.-Campbell.
1. Our bugles sang truce - for the night cloud had lowered
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, -
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
2. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
3. Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
"T was autumn and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
4. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.
5. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part; My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
6. "Stay, stay with us―rest, thou art weary and worn: " And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
There is a sweetness in woman's decay,
When the light of beauty is fading away,
When the bright enchantment of youth is gone,
And the tint that glowed, and the eye that shone
And darted around its glance of power,
And the lip that vied with the sweetest flower,
That ever in Pæstum's garden blew,
Or ever was steeped in fragrant dew,
When all that was bright and fair, is fled,
But the loveliness lingering round the dead.
Oh! there is a sweetness in beauty's close,
Like the perfume scenting the withered rose;
For a nameless charm around her plays,
And her eyes are kindled with hallowed rays,
And a veil of spotless purity
Has mantled her cheek with its heavenly dye,
Like a cloud whereon the queen of night
Has poured her softest tint of light;
And there is a blending of white and blue,
Where the purple blood is melting through
The snow of her pale and tender cheek;
And there are tones, that sweetly speak
Of a spirit, who longs for a purer day,
And is ready to wing her flight away.
In the flush of youth and spring of feeling,
When life, like a sunny stream, is stealing
Its silent steps through a flowery path,
And all the endearments that pleasure hath
Are poured from her full, o'erflowing horn,
When the rose of enjoyment conceals no thorn,
In her lightness of heart, to the cheery song
The maiden may trip in the dance along,
And think of the passing moment, that lies,
Like a fairy dream, in her dazzled eyes,
And yield to the present, that charms around
With all that is lovely in sight and sound,
Where a thousand pleasing phantoms flit,
With the voice of mirth, and the burst of wit,
And the music that steals to the bosom's core,
And the heart in its fullness flowing o'er
With a few big drops, that are soon repressed,
For short is the stay of grief in the breast:
In this enlivened and gladsome hour
The spirit may burn with a brighter power;
But dearer the calm and quiet day,
When the heaven-sick soul is stealing away.
From "The Discourse of the Wanderer."-WORDSWORTH.
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of Childhood—but that there the Soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired
Of her own native vigor - but for this,
That it is given her thence in age to hear
Reverberations, and a choral song,
Commingling with the incense that ascends
Undaunted, towards the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar?- Do not think
That Good and Wise will ever be allowed,
Though strength decay, to breathe in such estate
As shall divide them wholly from the stir
Of hopeful nature. Rightly is it said
That man descends into the Vale of years;
Yet have I thought that we might also speak,
And not presumptuously, I trust, of Age,
As of a final Eminence, though bare
In aspect and forbidding, yet a Point
On which 't is not impossible to sit
In awful sovereignty — a place of power
A Throne, which may be likened unto his,
Who, in some placid day in summer, looks
Down from a mountain-top,- say one of those
High peaks, that bound the Vale where now we are.
Faint and diminished to the gazing eye,
Forest and field, and hill and dale appear,
With all the shapes upon their surface spread.
But, while the gross and visible frame of things
Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,
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