And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow!

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;

And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean-child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife

Full fifty summers a sailor's life;

With wealth to spend and a power to range,
And never have sought, nor sighed for change;

And death, whenever he comes to me,

Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!

THE NIGHTS OF VENICE.

GEORGE SAND. TRANSLATED BY THE EDITORS.

THE beauty of the sky and the delights of night in Venice are beyond expression. The lagoon is so calm in clear nights that the stars do not tremble in it. When

we are in the middle, it is so blue, so even, that our eye does not mark the horizon line, and the water and sky make one veil of azure where revery loses itself and is lulled to sleep; the air is so transparent and so pure that we see in the heavens a million times more stars than we can discern in our northern France. I have seen here nights so star-studded that the silvery white of the stars occupied more space than the blue of the air in the vault of the firmament.

If you would taste a fresh and pure repose, choose in one of these lovely nights, the flight of marble steps which leads down from the royal gardens to the canal. When the gilded railing is closed on the garden side, you may be borne in a gondola to the flagstones still warm with the rays of the setting sun, and not be annoyed by any importunate pedestrians. When the midnight wind passes over the lime-trees and scatters. its flowers on the waters; when the scent of geranium and clover rises in whiffs; when the domes of Santa Maria raise into the heavens their half-globes of alabaster and their minarets crowned with a turban; when all is white, water, sky, and marble, the three elements of Venice, and when from the height of the tower of Saint Mark a great brazen voice hovers over your head; then there will flow through your whole being a calm so profound that your life seems to be entirely given up to rest and forgetfulness.

THE HIGHLAND CHASE.

WALTER SCOTT.

THE stag at eve had drunk his fill
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;
But when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
The deep-mouthed bloodhounds' heavy bay
Resounded up the rocky way,

And faint, from further distance borne
Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.

As Chief who hears his warder call,

66

To arms! the foemen storm the wall," The antlered monarch of the waste

Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
But e'er his fleet career he took,

The dew-drops from his flanks he shook;
Like crested leader proud and high,
Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuffed the tainted gale,
A moment listened to the cry,
That thickened as the chase drew nigh;
Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
With one brave bound the copse he cleared,
And, stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.

Yelled on the view the opening pack;
Rock, glen, and cavern paid them back;
To many a mingled sound at once

The awakened mountain gave response.
A hundred dogs bayed deep and strong,
Clattered a hundred steeds along,
Their peal the merry horns rung out,
A hundred voices joined the shout:
With hark and whoop, and wild halloo,
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew.
Far from the tumult fled the roe,
Close in her covert cowered the doe,
The falcon, from her cairn on high,
Cast on the rout a wondering eye,
Till far beyond her piercing ken
The hurricane had swept the glen.
Faint, and more faint, its failing din
Returned from cavern, cliff, and lin,
And silence settled, wide and still,
On the lone wood and mighty hill.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.

JOHN KEATS.

THE poetry of earth is never dead;

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead. That is the grasshopper's - he takes the lead

In summer luxury,

he has never done

With his delights; for, when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never.

On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills,
The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.

LEIGH HUNT.

GREEN little vaulter in the sunny grass
Catching your heart up at the feel of June-
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper who class

With those who think the candle come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricks and tune
Nick the glad, silent moments as they pass!
O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

One to the fields, the other to the hearth,

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,

Indoors and out, summer and winter, mirth.