SONG OF NOURMAHAL.
(From "Lalla Rookh.")

OR mine is the lay that lightly floats,
And mine are the murmuring, dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly;
And the passionate strain, that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk wind, over the waters blowing,
Ruffles the wave, but sweetens it too.
Mine is the charm, whose mystic sway
The spirits of past delight obey;
Let but the teful talisman sound,

And they come, like genii, hovering round.

And mine is the gentle song that bears
From soul to soul the wishes of love,
As a bird that wafts through genial airs
The cinnamon seed from grove to grove.
"Tis I that mingle in one sweet measure
The past, the present, and future of pleasure;
When Memory links the tone that is gone

With the blissful tone that's still in the ear,
And Hope from a heavenly note flies on
To a note more heavenly still that is near.
THOMAS MOORE.

FROM "THE SELF-ENCHANTED."

I had sense in dreams of a Beauly rare
whom fate had spell bound and rooted there,

#coping.

like some enchanted theme,

Over the marge of that chrystal stream
where the blooming Greek, to Echo blind,
with self love fond had to waters pined

MUSIC.

(From "Merchant of Venice," Act V., Scene 1.)

[OW sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica: Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb, which thou be-
hold'st,

But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubim.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

ths Lamb

MARE RUBRUM.

LASH out a stream of blood-red wine,
For I would drink to other days,
And brighter shall their memory shine,
Seen flaming throngh its crimson blaze!
The roses die, the summers fade,

But every ghost of boyhood's dream
By nature's magic power is laid

To sleep beneath this blood-red stream.
It filled the purple grapes that lay

And drank the splendors of the sun,
Where the long summer's cloudless day
Is mirrored in the broad Garonne;
It pictures still the bacchant shapes
That saw their hoarded sunlight shed;
The maidens dancing on the grapes,
Their milkwhite ankles splashed with red.

Beneath these waves of crimson lie,

In rosy fetters prisoned fast,
Those flitting shapes that never die—
The swift-winged visions of the past.
Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim,
Each shadow rends its flowery chain,
Springs in a bubble from its brim

And walks the chamber of the brain.

Poor beauty! Time and fortune's wrong
No shape nor feature may withstand;
Thy wrecks are scattered all along,
Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;

The shout of voices known so well,
The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,
The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid

395

Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed,
And here those cherished forms have stray-
ed

We miss awhile, and call them dead.
What wizard fills the wondrous glass?
What soil the enchanted clusters grew?
That buried passions wake and pass
In beaded drops of fiery dew?

Oliver Wendell Hormes.

Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,
The dust restores each blooming girl,
As if the sea-shells moved again

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.

Here lies the home of school-boy life,

With creaking stair and wind-swept hall,
And, scarred by many a truant knife,
Our old initials on the wall;

Here rest, their keen vibrations mute,

Nay! take the cup of blood-red wine;
Our hearts can boast a warmer glow,
Filled with a vintage more divine,

Calmed, but not chilled, by winter's snow!
To-night, the palest wave we sip

Rich as the priceless draught shall be That wet the bride of Cana's lip

The wedding wine of Galilee!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

What good are fancies rare, that rack
With painful thought the poet's brain?

Till David's lyre grew mightier than his Alas! they cannot bear us back