Where dost thou lie, thou thinly peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen,
Where sons, contented with their native ground,
Ne'er travelled further than ten furlongs round,
And the tanned peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together, and together died,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise,
With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dyes;
All savage where the embroidered gardens end,
The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend;
And oh if Heaven the ambitious thought ap-
prove,

A rill shall warble 'cross the gloomy grove,
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds conveyed,

Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade.

'Mong all the joys my soul hath known, 'Mong errors over which it grieves, I sit at this dark hour alone,

Like Autumn mid his withered leaves. This is a night of wild farewells

To all the past, the good, the fair; To-morrow, and my wedding bells Will make a music in the air.

Like a wet fisher tempest-tost,

Who sees throughout the weltering night Afar on some low-lying coast

The streaming of a rainy light,

I saw this hour, and now 't is come;
The rooms are lit, the feast is set;

Within the twilight I am dumb,
My heart filled with a vague regret.

hale!

How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale! That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high,

He drowns each feathered minstrel of the sky.
Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn
The deep-mouthed beagle and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well-dissembled flies,
Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies.
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach, or flavored nectarine;
Or rob the beehive of its golden hoard,
And bear the unbought luxuriance to thy board.
Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours,
While from thy needle rise the silken flowers,
And thou, by turns, to ease my feeble sight,
Resume the volume, and deceive the night.
O, when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest,
Soft whispering, let me warn my love to rest ;
Then watch thee, charmed, while sleep locks

every sense,

And to sweet Heaven commend thy innocence.
Thus reigned our fathers o'er the rural fold,
Wise, hale, and honest, in the days of old;
Till courts arose, where substance pays for show,
And specious joys are bought with real woe.

THOMAS TICKELL.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING;
OR, TEN YEARS AFTER.

THE Country ways are full of mire,
The boughs toss in the fading light,
The winds blow out the sunset's fire,

And sudden droppeth down the night.
I sit in this familiar room,

Where mud-splashed hunting squires resort; My sole companion in the gloom

This slowly dying pint of port.

Where'er she treads the pansy blows; Nor call her eyes twin stars, her smile A sunbeam, and her mouth a rose. Nor can I, as your bridegrooms do,

Talk of my raptures. O, how sore The fond romance of twenty-two

Is parodied ere thirty-four!

FROM "THE EPITHALAMION.”

LOE! where she comes along with portly pace,
Lyke Phoebe, from her chamber of the East,
Arysing forth to run her mighty race,
Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best.
So well it her beseems, that ye would weene
Some angell she had beene.

Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,
Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene,
Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre,
And, being crowned with a girland greene,
Seem lyke some mayden queene.
Her modest eyes, abashed to behold
So many gazers as on her do stare,
Upon the lowly ground affixed are,

Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,
But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud,
So farre from being proud.

Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing, That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

Tell me, ye merchants daughters, did ye see
So fayre a creature in your towne before;
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store?
Her goodly eyes lyke saphyres shining bright,
Her forehead yvory white,

Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,

Her lips lyke cherries, charming men to byte,
Her brest lyke to a bowl of creame uncrudded,
Her paps lyke lyllies budded,

Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre,
And all her body like a pallace fayre,
Ascending up, with many a stately stayre,
To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre.
Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze,
Upon her so to gaze,

Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,
To which the woods did answer, and your eccho
ring?

EDMUND SPENSER.

HEBREW WEDDING.

FROM "THE FALL OF JERUSALEM." To the sound of timbrels sweet Moving slow our solemn feet, We have borne thee on the road To the virgin's blest abode; With thy yellow torches gleaming, And thy scarlet mantle streaming, And the canopy above Swaying as we slowly move.

Thou hast left the joyous feast,
And the mirth and wine have ceased;
And now we set thee down before
The jealously unclosing door,
That the favored youth admits
Where the veiled virgin sits
In the bliss of maiden fear,
Waiting our soft tread to hear,
And the music's brisker din
At the bridegroom's entering in,
Entering in, a welcome guest,
To the chamber of his rest.

the holy vow

THEN before All they stand,
And ring of gold, no fond illusions now,
Bind her as his. Across the threshold led,
And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light,
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures and his cares dividing,
Winning him back when mingling in the throng,
Back from a world we love, alas! too long,
To fireside happiness, to hours of ease,
Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.
How oft her eyes read his; her gentle mind
To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined;
Still subject, ever on the watch to borrow
Mirth of his mirth and sorrow of his sorrow!

The soul of music slumbers in the shell,

Till waked and kindled by the master's spell,

What's the world, my lass, my love!-- what can it do?

pour

A thousand melodies unheard before!

SAMUEL Rogers.

SEVEN TIMES SIX.

GIVING IN MARRIAGE.

To bear, to nurse, to rear,
To watch, and then to lose :
To see my bright ones disappear,
Drawn up like morning dews;

To bear, to nurse, to rear,

To watch, and then to lose :

This have I done when God drew near Among his own to choose.

To hear, to heed, to wed,

And with thy lord depart

In tears that he, as soon as shed, Will let no longer smart.

To hear, to heed, to wed,

This while thou didst I smiled, For now it was not God who said, "Mother, give ME thy child."

O fond, O fool, and blind,

To God I gave with tears;

But, when a man like grace would find, My soul put by her fears.

O fond, O fool, and blind,

God guards in happier spheres ; That man will guard where he did bind Is hope for unknown years.

To hear, to heed, to wed,

Fair lot that maidens choose, Thy mother's tenderest words are said, Thy face no more she views;

Thy mother's lot, my dear,

She doth in naught accuse;

Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear,
To love and then to lose.

JEAN INGELOW.

LIKE A LAVEROCK IN THE LIFT.

It's we two, it's we two for aye,

All the world, and we two, and Heaven be our

stay!

Like a laverock* in the lift,† sing, O bonny

bride!

#4
FROM PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE."

SHE was a creature framed by love divine

side.

In pondering her perfections; so unmoved Amidst the world's contentions, if they touched

To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
O, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart;
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamored more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly

To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.
JAMES THOMSON.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

CONNUBIAL LIFE.

FROM "THE SEASONS: SPRING.'

BUT happy they! the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings
blend.

'T is not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love;
Where friendship full-exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing
will,

With boundless confidence: for naught but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,

FRAGMENTS.

FORELOOKINGS.