Then wheeling about with its mates at play, Above and below, and among the spray, Hither and thither, with screams as wild, As the laughing mirth of a rosy child!

What joy it must be, like a living breeze,
To flutter about 'mong the flowering trees;
Lightly to soar, and to see beneath

The wastes of the blossoming purple heath,
And the yellow furze like fields of gold,
That gladden some fairy regions old!
On mountain tops, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of the forest tree,
How pleasant the life of a bird must be!

COME, LIVE WITH ME, ETC.

Marlom.-1503.

COME, live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of roses
With a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Slippers lined choicely from the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps, and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning,
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

THE SONG OF THE SEA SHELL.

Mrs. Abdy.

I CAME from the ocean, a billow passed o'er

me,

And covered with sea weed and glistening with foam,

I fell on the strand, and a stranger soon bore me To deck the gay halls of his far distant home.

Encompassed by exquisite myrtles and roses, Still, still in the deep I am pining to be, And the low voice within me my feeling discloses,

And evermore murmurs the sound of the sea.

Since I left the blue deep I am ever regretting, And mingled with men in the regions above, I have known them, the ties they once cherished forgetting,

Oft trust to new friendship and cling to new love.

Oh! is it so hard to preserve true devotion? Let mortals who doubt seek a lesson from me,

I am bound by mysterious ties to the ocean, And no language is mine but the sound of the sea.

THE DROP OF DEW.

Andrew Marvell.

SEE how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn,
Into the blowing roses,

Yet careless of its mansion new,

For the dear region where 'twas born,

Round in itself encloses;

And in its little globe's extent
Frames as it can its native element.
How it the purple flower does slight;
Scarce touching where it lies,
But gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light,
Like its own tear.

Because so long divided from the sphere,
Restless it rolls and insecure,
Trembling lest it grow impure,

Till the warm sun pities its pain
And to the skies exhales it back again.

THE CLOUD.

Shelley.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under ;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream

The spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,

While he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack
When the morning star shines dead;

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings
An eagle alit, one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath