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.*

*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:

* 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! the less through thy rich woods will swell, For one, one broken heart.

No song

"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

That I, your child, am gone?

"No, ever glad and free!

voices know

Ye have no sounds a tale of death to tell,

Waves, joyous waves, flow on, and fare ye
Ye will not mourn for me.

well!

"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?

Only to say-O sunshine and blue skies!
O life and love, farewell!"

Thus flow'd the death-chant on; while mournfully
Low winds and waves made answer, and the tones
Buried in rocks along the Grecian stream,
Rocks and dim caverns of old Prophecy,
Woke to respond: and all the air was fill'd

With that one sighing sound-"Farewell, Farewell!" -Fill'd with that sound? high in the calm blue heaven

Even then a skylark hung; soft summer clouds
Were floating round him, all transpierced with light,
And 'midst that pearly radiance his dark wings
Quiver'd with song:-such free triumphant song,
As if tears were not,—as if breaking hearts
Had not a place below-and thus that strain
Spoke to the Poet's ear exultingly.

"The summer is come; she hath said, Rejoice!'
The wild woods thrill to her merry voice;
Her sweet breath is wandering around, on high;
Sing, sing through the echoing sky!

"There is joy in the mountains; the bright waves leap,

Like the bounding stag when he breaks from sleep;