A SNOW-STORM.

And strove to shelter himself till day,

With his coat and the buffalo.

IV.

He has given the last faint jerk of the rein,
To rouse up his dying steed;

And the poor dog howls to the blast in vain
For help in his master's need.

For a while he strives with a wistful cry
To catch a glance from his drowsy eye,
And wags his tail if the rude winds flap
The skirt of the buffalo over his lap,
And whines when he takes no heed.

V.

The wind goes down and the storm is o'er,
"Tis the hour of midnight, past;
The old trees writhe and bend no more
In the whirl of the rushing blast.
The silent moon with her peaceful light
Looks down on the hills with snow all white,

And the giant shadow of Camel's Hump,
The blasted pine and the ghostly stump,
Afar on the plain are cast.

But cold and dead by the hidden log
Are they who came from the town,
The man in his sleigh, and his faithful dog,
And his beautiful Morgan brown,

In the wide snow-desert, far and grand,

99

With his cap on his head and the reins in his hand,
The dog with his nose on his master's feet,
And the mare half seen through the crusted sleet,
Where she lay when she floundered down.

Charles Gamage Eastman.

THE

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

HE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs

the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

101

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer

glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty

stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the

plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter

home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream

no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of

ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. William Cullen Bryant.

"0

THE SANDS OF DEE.

MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee."

The western wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,

A tress of golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair,

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair

Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea.

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee.

Charles Kingsley.

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

103

I

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there, -
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,

And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-belovéd Night!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.