Which, only white, deserves

A diamond for ever should it mark:

This is the morn should bring unto this grove
My love, to hear and recompense my love.
Fair king, who all preserves,

But show thy blushing beams,

And thou two sweeter eyes

Shalt see, than those which by Peneus' streams

Did once thy heart surprise;

Nay, suns, which shine as clear

As thou when two thou did to Rome appear.
Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise;
If that ye, winds, would hear

A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
Your stormy chiding stay;
Let zephyr only breathe,

And with her tresses play,

Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death.
The winds all silent are,
And Phoebus in his chair,
Ensaffroning sea and air,
Makes vanish every star:
Night like a drunkard reels

Beyond the hills to shun his flaming wheels;
The fields with flow'rs are deck'd in every hue,
The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue:
Here is the pleasant place,

And every thing, save her, who all should grace.

Several Scotch poets are deserving of mention as the writers of pleasant songs on a variety of subjects, but chiefly relating to peasant life. The first of these was Allan Ramsay, elsewhere mentioned as the editor of a collection of poems called The Evergreen, 1724. Another collection issued the same year, and entitled The Tea-Table Miscellany, contains several poems of his own composition. He tells us that his desire to write poetry had been inspired by the reading of Watson's Choice Collection of Scots Songs, Ancient and Modern. In the work which he did for Scotch

poetry, Ramsay imitated Watson, "collecting, adapting and publishing ancient poems, and getting ingenious friends to assist him in the production of modern poems.' Some of his own poems are admirable examples of homely Scotch lyrics. They are characterized by the broad fun, the quaint touches of humor, the pleasant vein of satire, by which Ramsay sought to entertain his audience of peasants, plow-boys, and shepherds, and his more critical companions of the "Easy Club."

His Bessie Bell and Mary Gray and The Lass o' Patie's Mill are among his pleasantest songs. His Lochaber No More is full of pathos and manly feeling:

Farewell to Lochaber, and farewell my Jean,
Where heartsome with thee I've mony day been ;
For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.
These tears that I shed they are a' for my dear,
And no for the dangers attending on wear;
Though bore on rough seas to a far bloody shore,
Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.

Though hurricanes rise, and rise every wind,
They'll ne'er make a tempest like that in my mind;
Though loudest of thunder on louder waves roar,
That's naething like leaving my love on the shore.
To leave thee behind me my heart is sair pained;
By ease that's inglorious no fame can be gained;
And beauty and love's the reward of the brave,
And I must deserve it before I can crave.

Then glory, my Jeany, man plead my excuse;
Since honor commands me, how can I refuse?
Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee,
And without thy favor I'd better not be.
I gae then, my lass, to win honor and fame,
And if I should luck to come gloriously hame,
I'll bring a heart to thee with love running o'er
And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more.

The poems of Robert Fergusson are remarkable as having furnished models for some of the songs of Burns. They were collected in a single small volume, and published in 1773. We shall be interested in comparing Burns's poems. with those of his predecessor; not that Fergusson possessed anything of the genius of Burns, but because we shall discover, in the best works of the latter, evident traces of the influence of the younger poet. The Cotter's Saturday Night, of Burns, was suggested by the Farmer's Ingle, of Fergusson; and Fergusson's ode To the Gowdspink may well be compared with Burns's Lines to a Mountain Daisy. Fergusson's Address to the Tron-Kirk Bell, his Braid Claith, and Cauler Water, are among his pleasantest songs. The opening stanzas of Cauler Water will serve as a specimen of his humor, and also of his favorite form of verse:

When father Adie first pat spade in

The bonnie yard o' ancient Eden,

His amry had nae liquor laid in

To fire his mou;

Nor did he thole his wife's upbraidin'
For bein fou.

A cauler burn o' siller sheen,

Ran cannily out owre the green ;

And when our gutcher's drouth had been
To bide right sair,

He loutit down, and drank bedeen
A dainty skair.

His bairns had a' before the flood,
A langer tack o' flesh and blood,
And on mair pithy shanks they stood
Than Noah's line,

Wha still hae been a freckless brood,

Wi' drinkin' wine.

We have already spoken of Robert Burns as the greatest song-writer of our literature, and have noticed his love

poems and his patriotic lyrics. His Address to the Deil is written in the same style as the poems of Fergusson, just noticed, and so, also, is his Bard's Epitaph. Of his numerous other lyrics, we mention but a few, and these the student is advised to study: My Heart's in the Highlands; Flow Gently, Sweet Afton; A Man's a Man for a' that; Auld Lang Syne; Macpherson's Farewell; Man was Made to Mourn. A critic has recently said: "Burns lives above all, and is destined to live, in his songs. He inherited

from his poetical ancestry a wealth, not of hymns, but of songs and ballads, chiefly, of course, amatory. They inspired him with harmonies, compared with which they are themselves harsh and out of tune; the inimitable airs to which they were sung were reverberated from his mind in words in which there is the very soul of melody. In this process of transmitting what he received from the past to the future, to which he looked forward as a better day for all mankind, he changed, as regards morality, silver into gold, dirt into the fragrance of lilies and violets, foul dirt into the breath of meadows and of shady paths through woods and by the banks of murmuring streams. Judged by his songs, Burns's fame has little to fear from any question being raised as to whether the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the instance of his poetry is really what it seems-a tree that is good for food and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise."

William Blake, one of the most remarkable persons known to our literature, was the author of several lyrical poems, some of decided merit. His Songs of Innocence were published in 1787, and the companion volume, Songs of Experience, in 1794. The manner in which these books were issued was peculiar. The text of the poems and the pictorial illustrations were all blended in one artistic design, and engraved by the author, who was also an artist. Then copies were struck off the blocks thus engraved, in sufficient numbers to meet every demand. There is in Blake's poetry a charming, child-like simplicity, the like of

which is scarcely to be found elsewhere in our literature. It possesses all the beauty of nature, simple, uncultivated, unpremeditated. Secluding himself from men, and remaining aloof from the concerns and cares which distract most mortals, he was enabled to perform his work in absolute independence of all models, whether of predecessors or of contemporaries. A single specimen of his poems, the Introduction to his Songs of Innocence, is all that we can give:

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a lamb:"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again :"
So I piped; he wept to hear

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe,
Sing thy songs of happy cheer:"
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read"-
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs,
Every child may joy to hear.

John G. Whittier is the American lyrist. He is a man of deep convictions and strong emotions, and he speaks his feelings passionately, fearlessly. His songs are, in the broadest sense, national. In ante-bellum days, he sang of slavery, and pleaded strenuously, persistently, for the oppressed negroes. His volume of lyrics and other poems