Of merry elves bespangled all with dew,

Watching their wild but unobtrusive play,
I fling the hours away.

Fantastic creatures of the old-time lore,

A gracious couch the root of an old oak
Whose branches yield it moss and canopy
Is mine, and, so it be from woodman's stroke
Secure, shall never be resigned by me;
It hangs above the stream that idly flies,
Heedless of any eyes.

There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent,
While every sense on earnest mission sent,
Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour,

Returns, thought laden, back with bloom and flower

Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil, A profitable toil.

And still the waters trickling at my feet

Wind on their way with gentlest melody, Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat, Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by, Yet not so rudely as to send one sound Through the thick copse around.

Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees,

Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, pressed
On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries, -
And with awakened vision upward bent,
I watch the firmament.

How like its sure and undisturbed retreat,
Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm-
To the pure waters trickling at my feet

The bending trees that overshade my form
So far as sweetest things of earth may seem
Like those of which we dream.

Such, to my mind, is the philosophy

The young bird teaches, who, with sudden flight, Sails far into the blue that spreads on high,

Until I lose him from my straining sight,
With a most lofty discontent to fly,
Upward, from earth to sky.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

YARROW UNVISITED.

FROM Stirling Castle we had seen

The mazy Forth unravelled; Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, And with the Tweed had travelled; And when we came to Clovenford,

Then said my "winsome Marrow," "Whate'er betide, we 'll turn aside, And see the braes of Yarrow."

"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow; 't is their own,
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,

Hares couch, and rabbits burrow! But we will downward with the Tweed, Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;

And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus ;
There's pleasant Teviot-dale, a land

Made blithe with plough and harrow:
Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow?

"What's Yarrow but a river bare,
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere,

As worthy of your wonder."

Strange words they seemed, of slight and scorn;
My true-love sighed for sorrow,

And looked me in the face, to think
I thus could speak of Yarrow !

“O, green,” said I, “are Yarrow's holms,
And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
But we will leave it growing.

O'er hilly path and open strath

We'll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.

"Let beeves and homebred kine partake
The sweets of Burn Mill meadow;
The swan still on St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow !

AND is this-Yarrow? This the stream Of which my fancy cherished,

So faithfully, a waking dream?

An image that hath perished!

O that some minstrel's harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,

And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!
Yet why?

-a silvery current flows With uncontrolled meanderings; Nor have these eyes by greener hills

Been soothed in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, St. Mary's Lake
Is visibly delighted;

For not a feature of those hills
Is in the mirror slighted.

On Alpine heights, o'er many a fragrant heath, The loveliest breezes breathe;

So free and pure the air,

His breath seems floating there.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

On Alpine heights, beneath his mild blue eye,
Still vales and meadows lie;

The soaring glacier's ice
Gleams like a paradise.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

Down Alpine heights the silvery streamlets flow;
There the bold chamois go;

On giddy crags they stand,
And drink from his own hand.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

On Alpine heights, in troops all white as snow,
The sheep and wild goats go;
There, in the solitude,

He fills their hearts with food.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

On Alpine heights the herdsman tends his herd;

His Shepherd is the Lord;

For he who feeds the sheep

Will sure his offspring keep.

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells.

KRUMMACHER (German). Translation of CHARLES T. BROOKS.

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

NIGHT was again descending, when my mule,
That all day long had climbed among the clouds,
Higher and higher still, as by a stair
Let down from heaven itself, transporting me,
Stopped, to the joy of both, at that low door
So near the summit of the Great St. Bernard;

That door which ever on its hinges moved
To them that knocked, and nightly sends abroad
Ministering spirits. Lying on the watch,
Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me,
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb;
And a lay-brother of the Hospital,

Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits
The distant echoes gaining on his ear,
Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand,
'While I alighted.

If dale it might be called so near to heaven,
A little lake, where never fish leaped up,
Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;
A star, the only one in that small sky,
On its dead surface glimmering. "T was a scene
Resembling nothing I had left behind,

As though all worldly ties were now dissolved;
And to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore
Under a beetling cliff stood half in shadow
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,
For such as, having wandered from their way,
Had perished miserably. Side by side,
Within they lie, a mournful company

All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;
Their features full of life, yet motionless
In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,
Though the barred windows, barred against the
wolf,

We wandered to the pine forest

That skirts the ocean's foam;
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise!

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed by every azure breath
That under heaven is blown
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own:

Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean-woods may be.

How calm it was! the silence there

By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste

To the soft flower beneath our feet
A magic circle traced,
A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life;
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife;
And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there

Was one fair Form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.

We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough;

Each seemed as 't were a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;

A firmament of purple light

Which in the dark earth lay,

More boundless than the depth of night
And purer than the day,

In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighboring lawn,

And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen
Were imaged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green :
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest; Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought

Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.

-Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in waters seen!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.