Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres

above,

What art thou but a harbinger of woe?

Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan wailings to the fainting ear;
Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a

tear;

Be therefore silent as in woods before:

Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, Like widow'd turtle, still her loss complain. William Drummond.

HARP OF THE NORTH

(From "The Lady of the Lake")

Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung

On the witch-elm that shades St. Fillan's

spring,

And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Till envious ivy did around thee cling, Muffling with verdant ringlet every string, O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?

Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring, Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,

Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,

Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd, When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud. At each according pause was heard aloud

Thine ardent symphony sublime and high! Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed; For still the burden of thy minstrelsy Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

O, wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand

That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray; O, wake once more! though scarce my skill command

Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay: Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away, And all unworthy of thy nobler strain, Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,

The wizard note has not been touched in

vain.

Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake

again!

Sir Walter Scott.

"HUSHED IS THE LYRE - THE HAND THAT SWEPT"

(A Fragment)

Hushed is the lyre-the hand that swept The low and pensive wires,

Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.

Yes it is still the lyre is still;

The spirit which its slumbers broke

Hath pass'd away, and that weak hand

that woke

Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.

Henry Kirke White.

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?

Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river?

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river,

And hacked and hewed as a great god can
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan, (How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, Steadily from the outside ring,

And notched the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, (Laughed while he sat by the river!)

66

The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed," Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan,
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan
To laugh, as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man.

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain-
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Down through the shadow-years has come a word

Or two of Lamia, who, with her flute,