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And the last of that great line
Trod like one of a race divine!

And yet he was but friend to one,
Who fed him at the set of sun,

By some lone fountain fringed with green:
With him, a roving Bedouin,

He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day)—
And died untamed upon the sands
Where Balkh amid the desert stands !

MIRANDA.

BY SHAKSPEARE.

ADMIRED Miranda !

Indeed the top of admiration; worth

What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard; and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any
With so full soul but some defect in her

Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owned
And put it to the foil. But you, O you,
So perfect, and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best.

HERMIONE.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

THOU hast beauty bright and fair,
Manner noble, aspect free,

Eyes that are untouched by care:
What then do we ask from thee?
Hermione, Hermione?

Thou hast reason quick and strong,
Wit that envious men admire,

And a voice, itself a song!

What then can we still desire?

Hermione, Hermione?

Something thou dost want, O queen!
(As the gold doth ask alloy),

Tears, amid thy laughter seen,
Pity, mingling with thy joy.

This is all we ask from thee,
Hermione, Hermione '

THE SPIRIT OF POETRY.

BY H. T. TUCKERMAN.

FOR Fame life's meaner records vainly strive, While, in fresh beauty, thy high dreams survive. Still Vesta's temple throws its classic shade O'er the bright foam of Tivoli's cascade, And to one Venus still we bow the knee, Divine as if just issued from the sea; In fancy's trance, yet deem on nights serene, We hear the revels of the fairy queen, That Dian's smile illumes the marble fane, And Ceres whispers in the rustling grain, That Ariel's music has not died away, And in his shell still floats the culprit Fay. The sacred beings of poetic birth Immortal live to consecrate the earth.

San Marco's pavement boasts no Doge's tread,
And all its ancient pageantry has fled;

Yet as we muse beneath some dim arcade,
The mind's true kindred glide from ruin's shade:
In every passing eye that sternly beams,
We start to meet the Shylock of our dreams;
Each maiden form, where virgin grace is seen,
Crosses our path with Portia's noble mien,

While Desdemona, beauteous as of yore,

Yields us the smile that once entranced the
Moor.

How Scotland's vales are peopled to the heart
By her bold minstrels' necromantic art!

Along this fern moved Jeannie's patient feet,
Where hangs yon mist, rose Ellangowan's seat,
Here the sad bride first gave her love a tongue,
And there the chief's last shout of triumph
rung:

Beside each stream, down every glen they throng,

The cherished offspring of creative song!

Long ere brave Nelson shook the Baltic shore,
The bard of Avon hallowed Elsinore :
Perchance when moored the fleet, awaiting day,
To fix the battle's terrible array,

Some pensive hero, musing o'er the deep,
So soon to fold him in its dreamless sleep,
Heard the Dane's sad and self-communing tone
Blend with the water's melancholy moan,
Recalled, with prayer and awe-suspended breath
His wild and solemn questionings of death,
Or caught from land Ophelia's dying song,
Swept by the night-breeze plaintively along!

A FOREST WALK.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

A LOVELY sky, a cloudless sun,

A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers,
O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won,
To the cool forest's shadowy bowers;
One of the paths all round that wind,

Traced by the browsing herds, I choose,
And sights and sounds of human kind
In nature's lone recesses lose;
The beech displays its marbled bark,
The spruce its green tent stretches wide,
While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark,
The maple's scallop'd dome beside :
All weave on high a verdant roof,
That keeps the very sun aloof,
Making a twilight soft and green,
Within the column'd, vaulted scene.

Sweet forest-odours have their birth

From the clothed boughs and teeming earth; Where pine-cones dropp'd, leaves piled and

dead,

Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern,
With many a wild flower's fairy urn,
A thick, elastic carpet spread;

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