The lark lies couch'd in her grassy nest,
And the honey-bee is gone,

And all bright things are away to rest:
Why watch ye here alone?

Is not your world a mournful one,
When your sisters close their eyes,

And your soft breath meets not a lingering tone
Of song in the starry skies?

Take ye no joy in the day-spring's birth,
When it kindles the sparks of dew?

And the thousand strains of the forest's mirth,
Shall they gladden all but you?

Shut your sweet bells till the fawn comes out
On the sunny turf to play,

And the woodland child with a fairy shout
Goes dancing on its way!

66

Nay, let our shadowy beauty bloom
When the stars give quiet light,
And let us offer our faint perfume
On the silent shrine of night.

"Call it not wasted, the scent we lend
To the breeze, when no step is nigh;
Oh thus for ever the earth should send
Her grateful breath on high!

"And love us as emblems, night's dewy flowers,
Of hopes unto sorrow given,

That spring through the gloom of the darkest hours, Looking alone to heaven!"

ECHO-SONG.

IN thy cavern-hall,

Echo! art thou sleeping?
By the fountain's fall
Dreamy silence keeping?

Yet one soft note borne

From the shepherd's horn,

Wakes thee, Echo! into music leaping!
-Strange, sweet Echo! into music leaping.

Then the woods rejoice,

Then glad sounds are swelling
From each sister-voice

Round thy rocky dwelling;

And their sweetness fills

All the hollow hills,

With a thousand notes, of one life telling!
-Softly mingled notes, of one life telling.

Echo in my heart

Thus deep thoughts are lying,

Silent and apart,

Buried, yet undying.

Till some gentle tone

Wakening haply one,

Calls a thousand forth, like thee replying!

Strange, sweet Echo! even like thee replying.'

1

This song is in the possession of Mr. Power.

THE MUFFLED DRUM.'

THE muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound,
Which told the hamlets round
Of a soldier's burial rite.

But it told them not how dear,
In a home beyond the main,
Was the warrior youth laid low that hour,
By a mountain-stream of Spain.

The oaks of England waved

O'er the slumbers of his race,

But a pine of the Ronceval made moan
Above his last lone place:

When the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound
Which call'd strange echoes round
To the soldier's burial rite.

Brief was the sorrowing there,

By the stream from battle red, And tossing on its wave the plumes Of many a stately head:

1 Set to beautiful music by John Lodge, Esq.

But a mother- -soon to die,

And a sister-long to weep,

Even then were breathing prayers for him,
In that home beyond the deep;

While the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound,
And the dark pines mourn'd round,
O'er the soldier's burial rite.

THE SWAN AND THE SKYLARK.

"Adieu, adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades."

"Higher still and higher

KEATS.

From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."

SHELLEY.

'MIDST the long reeds that o'er a Grecian stream Unto the faint wind sigh'd melodiously,

And where the sculpture of a broken shrine
Sent out thro' shadowy grass and thick wild-flowers
Dim alabaster gleams-a lonely swan

Warbled his death-chant; and a poet stood
Listening to that strange music, as it shook
The lilies on the wave; and made the pines
And all the laurels of the haunted shore

Thrill to its passion. Oh! the tones were sweet, Even painfully-as with the sweetness wrung From parting love; and to the poet's thought This was their language.

"Summer, I depart!

O light and laughing summer, fare thee well!
No song the less through thy rich woods will swell,
For one, one broken heart.

"And fare ye well, young flowers! Ye will not mourn! ye will shed odour still, And wave in glory, colouring every rill, Known to my youth's fresh hours.

"And ye, bright founts, that lie

Far in the whispering forests, lone and deep,
My wing no more shall stir your shadowy sleep-
Sweet waters! I must die.

"Will ye not send one tone

Of sorrow through the pines?—one murmur low? Shall not the green leaves from your voices know That I, your child, am gone?

Ye have no sounds a tale of death to tell, Waves, joyous waves, flow on, and fare ye well! Ye will not mourn for me.

"But thou, sweet boon, too late

Pour'd on my parting breath, vain gift of song! Why comest thou thus, o'ermastering, rich and strong, In the dark hour of fate?