Hey the green ribbon! we kneeled beside it,
We parted the grasses dewy and sheen;
Drop over drop there filtered and slided
A tiny bright beck that trickled between.
Tinkle, tinkle, sweetly it sung to us,

Light was our talk as of faery bells-
Faery wedding-bells faintly rung to us
Down in their fortunate parallels.

Hand in hand, while the sun peered over,

We lapped the grass on that youngling spring; Swept back its rushes, smoothed its clover, And said, "Let us follow its westering."

III.

A dappled sky, a world of meadows,
Circling above us the black rooks fly
Forward, backward; lo, their dark shadows
Flit on the blossoming tapestry—

Flit on the beck, for her long grass parteth

As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back;

And, lo, the sun like a lover darteth

His flattering smile on her wayward track.

Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather
Till one steps over the tiny strand,
So narrow, in sooth, that still together,
On either brink we go hand in hand.
The beck grows wider, the hands must sever.
On either margin, our songs all done,
We move apart, while she singeth ever,

Taking the course of the stooping sun.
He prays, "Come over "-I may not follow;
I cry, "Return"-but he cannot come:
We speak, we laugh, but with voices hollow;
Our hands are hanging, our hearts are numb.

IV.

A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer,

A little talking of outward things: The careless beck is a merry dancer,

Keeping sweet time to the air she sings.

A little pain when the beck grows wider; "Cross to me now-for her wavelets swell;" "I may not cross"-and the voice beside her Faintly reacheth, though heeded well. No backward path; ah! no returning; No second crossing the ripple's flow: "Come to me now, for the west is burning; Come ere it darkens;"-"Ah, no! ah, no!"

Then cries of pain, and arms outreaching-
The beck grows wider and swift and deep;
Passionate words as of one beseeching-

The loud beck drowns them; we walk, and weep.

V.

A yellow moon in splendor drooping,

A tired queen with her state oppressed,
Low by rushes and swordgrass stooping,
Lies she soft on the waves at rest.

The desert heavens have felt her sadness!
Her earth will weep her some dewy tears;
The wild beck ends her tune of gladness,
And goeth stilly as soul that fears.
We two walk on in our grassy places

On either marge of the moonlit flood,
With the moon's own sadness in our faces,
Where joy is withered, blossom and bud.

VI.

A shady freshness, chafers whirring,
A little piping of leaf-hid birds;
A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring,

A cloud to the eastward snowy as curds.
Bare glassy slopes, where kids are tethered;
Round valleys like nests all ferny-lined;
Round hills, with fluttering tree-tops feathered
Swell high in their freckled robes behind.
A rose-flush tender, a thrill, a quiver
When golden gleams to the tree-tops glide:
A flashing edge for the milk-white river,

The beck, a river-with still sleek tide.
Broad and white, and polished as silver,
On she goes under fruit-laden trees;
Sunk in leafage cooeth the culver,

And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties. Glitters the dew and shines the river, Up comes the lily and dries her bell;

But two are walking apart forever,

And wave their hands for a mute farewell.
VII.

A braver swell, a swifter sliding;

The river hasteth, her banks recede:
Wing-like sails on her bosom gliding
Bear down the lily and drown the reed.

Stately prows are rising and bowing,
(Shouts of mariners winnow the air,)
And level sands for banks endowing
The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair.

While, O my heart! as white sails shiver,
And crowds are passing, and banks stretch wide,
How hard to follow with lips that quiver,
That moving speck on the far-off side.
Farther, farther-I see it-know it-
My eyes brim over, it melts away:
Only my heart to my heart shall show it
As I walk desolate day by day.

VIII.

And yet I know past all doubting, truly-
A knowledge greater than grief can dim—
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly-
Yea, better-e'en better than I love him.
And as I walk by the vast calm river,
The awful river so dread to see,

I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth for ever
Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me."

103.-THE TEACHERS OF MANKIND.

LORD BROUGHAM.

There is nothing which the adversaries of improvement are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is termed the "march of intellect;" and here I will confess, that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they are right. It is a very absurd, because a very incorrect, expression. It is little calculated to describe the operation in question. It does not picture an image at all resembling the proceedings of the true friends of mankind. It much more resembles the progress of the enemy of all improvement.

The conqueror moves in a march. He stalks onward with the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of war"-banners flying, shouts rending the air, guns thundering, and martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded and the lamentations for the slain.

Not thus the school-master, in his peaceful vocation. He meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless mankind; he slowly gathers round him those who are to further their execution; he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble path, laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots all the weeds of vice.

His is a progress not to be compared with anything like a

march; but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable, than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. Such men-men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind-I have found laboring conscientiously, though perhaps obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have gone.

I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active French; I have found them among the persevering, resolute, industrious Swiss; I have found them among the laborious, the warm-hearted, the enthusiastic Germans; I have found them among the high-minded but enslaved Italians; and in our own country, God be thanked, their number everywhere abounds, and is every day increasing.

Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after ages, in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Each one of these great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course, awaits in patience the fulfillment of the promises, and resting from his labors, bequeathes his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epi taph, commemorating "one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy."

104. THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again.

Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn,-and sunshine arose on the way

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young.

I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
"Stay, stay with us,-rest, thou art weary and worn!"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay,-
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

105. THE BOY.

N. P. WILLIS.

There's something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,
His dread of books and love of fun,
And in his clear and ready smile,
Unshaded by a thought of guile,
And unrepressed by sadness,

Which brings me to my childhood back,
As if I trod its very track

And felt its very gladness.

And yet it is not in his play,

When every trace of thought is lost,
And not when you would call him gay,
That his bright presence thrills me most.

His shout may ring upon the hill,
His voice be echoed in the hall,
His merry laugh like music trill,
And I in sadness hear it all;
For, like the wrinkles on my brow,
I scarcely notice such things now.
But when, amid the earnest game,
He stops, as if he music heard,
And, heedless of his shouted name
As of the carol of a bird,
Stands gazing on the empty air,
As if some dream were passing there:
'Tis then that on his face I look-
His beautiful but thoughtful face-
And, like a long-forgotten book,
Its sweet familiar meanings trace,—

Remembering a thousand things
Which passed me on those golden wings,
Which time has fettered now-

Things that came o'er me with a thrill,