THE MOON.

Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is placed.

RALEIGH.

THE full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,

Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless,
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.

And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,

Yet alway in her proper sphere

She's mistress of the night.

T.

TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST.

Low in the eastern sky

Is set thy glancing eye;

And though its gracious light.
Ne'er riseth to my sight,
Yet every star that climbs

Behind the gnarled limbs
Of yonder hill,
Conveys thy gentle will.

Believe I knew thy thought,
And that the zephyrs brought
Thy kindest wishes through,
As mine they bear to you,
That some attentive cloud
Did pause amid the crowd

Over my head,

While gentle things were said.

Believe the thrushes sung,
And that the flower bells rung,
That herbs exhaled their scent,
And beasts knew what was meant,

The trees a welcome waved,
And lakes their margins laved,

When thy free mind
To my retreat did wind.

It was a summer eve,
The air did gently heave,
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud;
The lightning's silent gleam
Startling my drowsy dream,
Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.

From yonder comes the sun,
But soon his course is run,
Rising to trivial day

Along his dusty way,
But thy noontide completes

Only auroral heats,

Nor ever sets,

To hasten vain regrets.

Direct thy pensive eye
Into the western sky;
And when the evening star
Doth glimmer from afar
Upon the mountain line,

Accept it for a sign

That I am near,
And thinking of thee here.

I'll be thy Mercury,

Thou Cytherea to me,
Distinguished by thy face

The earth shall learn my place;

As near beneath thy light
Will I outwear the night,
With mingled ray
Leading the westward way.

Still will I strive to be
As if thou wert with me;
Whatever path I take,
It shall be for thy sake
Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side,
Without a root

To trip thy slender foot.

I'll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place,

And careful dip the oar,

And shun the winding shore,

And gently steer my boat

Where water lilies float,

And cardinal flowers

Stand in their sylvan bowers.

THE SUMMER RAIN.

My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,

'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
And will not mind to hit their proper targe.

Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,
Our Shakspeare's life was rich to live again,
What Plutarch read that was not good nor true,
Nor Shakspeare's books, unless his books were men.

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,
What care I for the Greeks, or for Troy town,
If greater battles are enacted now

Between the ants upon this hummock's crown.

Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,

If red or black the gods will favor most,
Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,
Struggling to heave some rock against the host.

Tell Shakspeare to attend some leisure hour,
For now I've business with this drop of dew,
And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower,—
I'll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.

This bed of herdsgrass and wild oats was spread
Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use,
A clover tuft is pillow for my head,

And violets quite overtop my shoes.

And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,
And gently swells the wind to say all's well,
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
Some in the pond, some in the lily bell.

Drip, drip the trees for all the country round,
And richness rare distils from every bough,
The wind alone it is makes every sound,
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.

For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so,
My dripping locks - they would become an elf
Who in a beaded coat does gaily go.

T.

THE ARTIST.

He breathed the air of realms enchanted,
He bathed in seas of dreamy light,
And seeds within his soul were planted

That bore us flowers for use too bright, Unless it were to stay some spirit's viewless flight.

With us he lived a common life,

And wore a plain familiar name,
And meekly dared the vulgar strife

That to inferior spirits came,

Yet bore a pulse within, the world could never tame.

A sky more soft than Italy's

A halcyon light around him spread;

And tones were his, and only his,

So sweetly floating o'er his head,

None knew at what rich feast the favored guest was fed.

They could not guess or reason why

He chose the ways of poverty ;

They read no secret in his eye,

But scorned the holy mystery,

That brooded o'er his thoughts and gave him power to see.

But all unveiled the world of sense

An inner meaning had for him;

And Beauty loved in innocence,

Not sought in passion or in whim,

Within a soul so pure could ne'er grow dull or dim.

And in this vision did he toil,

And in this Beauty lived and died;

And think not that he left our soil

By no fruit-offerings sanctified:

In olden times he might have been his country's pride:

And yet may be though he hath gone;

For spirits of so fine a mould.

Lose not the glory they have won;

Their memory turns not pale and cold;

While Love lives on, the lovely never can grow old.

C. P. C.