With its sole lateen sail that trims
And turns (the water round its

rims

Dancing, as round a sinking cup)
And by us like a fish it curled,
And drew itself up close beside,
Its great sail on the instant furled,
And o'er its planks, a shrill voice
cried

(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's),
"Buy wine of us, you English
Brig?

Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ?
A pilot for you up to Triest?
Without one, look you ne'er so
big,

They'll never let you up the
bay!

We natives should know best."
I turned, and "Just those fellows'
way",

Our captain said, "The 'long-
shore thieves

Are laughing at us in their sleeves."

'In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;

And one, half-hidden by his side Under the furled sail, soon I spied,

With great grass hat and kerchief black,

Who looked up with his kingly throat,

Said somewhat, while the other shook

His hair back from his eyes to look

Their longest at us; then the boat, I know not how, turned sharply round,

Laying her whole side on the sea As a leaping fish does; from the lee,

Into the weather, cut somehow
Her sparkling path beneath our
bow;

And so went off, as with a bound,
Into the rosy and golden half
Of the sky, to overtake the sun
And reach the shore, like the sea-
calf

Its singing cave; yet I caught one
Glance ere away the boat quite
passed,

And neither time nor toil could

mar

Those features: so I saw the last
Of Waring!'-You? Oh, never

star

Was lost here, but it rose afar !
Look East, where whole new
thousands are!

In Vishnu-land what Avatar ?
R. BROWNING.

112. YOU'LL LOVE ME YET

YOU'LL love me yet!-and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:

June reared this bunch of flowers you carry,
From seeds of April's sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed

At least is sure to strike,

And yield-what you'll not pluck indeed,

Not love, but, may be, like!

You'll look at least on love 's remains,
A grave's one violet:

Your look ?-that pays a thousand pains,
What's death ?-you'll love me yet!

R. BROWNING (Pippa Passes).

113. FROM 'JUNE'

AND what if cheerful shouts, at noon,
Come, from the village sent,

Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent ?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?

I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know, I know I should not see
The season's glorious show,

Nor would its brightness shine for me,
Nor its wild music flow;

But if around my place of sleep,

The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.

Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
These to their softened hearts should bear
The thought of what has been,

And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;

Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,

Is that his grave is green;

And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear, again, his living voice.

W. C. BRYANT.

114. SO LIVE, THAT WHEN THY SUMMONS COMES

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

W. C. BRYANT (Thanatopsis).

115. TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN
THOU blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,

Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

W. C. BRYANT.

116. TO A WATERFOWL

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-
The desert and illimitable air-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

W. C. BRYANT.

Chase us along the panes,
Are we not quite as cosy
As down among country lanes ?
Nobody knows us, heeds us,
Nobody hears or sees,
And the shop-lights gleam more
gladly

Than the moon on hedges and
trees;

And people coming and going,

All upon ends of their own, Though they work a spell on the spirit,

Move it more finely alone.

The sound seems harmless and pleasant

As the murmur of brook and wind;

The shops with the fruit and the

pictures

Have sweetness to suit my mind;

And nobody knows us, heeds

us,

And our loving none reproves,
I, the poor figure-painter !
You, the lady he loves!

And what if the world should scorn you,

For now and again, as you do, Assuming a country kirtle,

And bonnet of straw thereto,
Or the robe of a vestal virgin,

Or a nun's grey gabardine,
And keeping a brother and sister
By standing and looking divine?

And what if the world, more

over,

Should silently pass me by, Because, at the dawn of the struggle,

I labour some stories high! Why, there's comfort in waiting, working,

And feeling one's heart beat
right,-

And rambling alone, love-making,
In London on Saturday night.
R. BUCHANAN.

THE crimson light of sunset falls

Through the grey glamour of the murmuring rain,
And creeping o'er the housetops crawls

Through the black smoke upon the broken pane,

Steals to the straw on which she lies,

And tints her thin black hair and hollow cheeks,
Her sun-tanned neck, her glistening eyes,-
While faintly, sadly, fitfully she speaks.

But when it is no longer light,

The pale girl smiles, with only One to mark,

And dies upon the breast of Night,

Like trodden snowdrift melting in the dark.

R. BUCHANAN.

119. SONG IN THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION

HE that is down, needs fear no

fall,

He that is low, no pride:
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,
Little be it, or much :

And, Lord, contentment still I

crave,

Because Thou savest such.

Fullness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage:

Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

J. BUNYAN (The Pilgrim's Progress).

120. TO BE A PILGRIM

WHO would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There's no discouragement,
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.

Who so beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound,
His strength the more is.

No lion can him fright,
He'll with a giant fight,
But he will have a right
To be a pilgrim.

Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend,
Can daunt his spirit;
He knows he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.

J. BUNYAN (The Pilgrim's. Progress).

121. OLD SCOTIA'S GRANDEUR

FROM Scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

An honest man 's the noblest work of God; '
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined !

R. BURNS (The Cotter's Saturday Night).

122. FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT

Is there, for honest poverty,

That hangs his head, and a' that?

The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that.