The Second Volume of BEAUTIFUL POETRY is now ready.

Many parts being out of print, a SECOND EDITION of BEAUTIFUL POETRY, revised, is now in course of publication. It is issued in weekly numbers, at 3d., and monthly parts, at ls., until it overtakes the current number.

Numbers I. to IV., and Part I. are now ready.

SACRED POETRY is now complete in orie vol., price 3s. cloth, 58. handsomely bound.

WIT AND HUMOUR, a Collection of the best things of the kind, is now ready, complete in one vol., price 4s. 6d., cloth, or in numbers at 3d., or Parts at 1s.

SELECTIONS IN FRENCH LITERATURE is now complete in one vol., price 1s. 6d.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

AS BEAUTIFUL POETRY is a good medium for Advertisements, and as only a few can be inserted, the following is the Scale of Charges:

Nearly ready, 150 pp., 100 Woodcuts, and Ten Plates, price 5s. N ESSAY ON CHURCH FURNITURE to the Restoration, of the Interior Decoration and Furniture of Churches.

CONTENTS.

General Arrangement of Ancient Churches.-Polychrome-Wall Paintings -Stained Glass.-Communion Table-Chair Rails.-Chancel Screens-Stalls -Reading-desk-Lettern- Pulpit-Pews. - Wall-hangings Door Curtains Carpets and Mats-Altar Cloths-Embroidery.-Clerical Vestments-Church Plate Lighting of Churches.l'ile Pavements.-Monuments. Bier and Pall, &c. &c.

Republished from the Clerical Journal and Church and University Chronicle, With additional Engravings and Plates. By the Rev. EDWARD L. CUTTS, B. A., Honorary Secretary of the Essex Archæological Society; Author of "The Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses," published under the sanction of the Central Committee of the Archæological Institute o Great Britain and Ireland, &c.

Copies may be obtained, postage free, direct from the publisher, or by order of any bookseller.

JOHN CROCKFORD, 29, Essex-street, Strand.

Beautiful Poetry.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

By GRAY, well known to every reader as the author of the famous Elegy.
Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of Spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-occupies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit and think
(At ease, reclined in rustic state),
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little, are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care:
The panting herds repose:

Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied Spring,

And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim,
Quick glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye,
Such is the race of man:

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike, the busy and the gay

But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colonrs dress'd:
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:

"Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown:
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-
We frolic while 'tis May.'

SLEEP.

A passage from Endymion, by KEATS.

So she was gently glad to see him laid Under her favourite bower's quiet shade, On her own couch, new made of flower leaves, Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves, When last the sun his autumn tresses shook, And the tann'd harvesters rich armfuls took. Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest: But, ere it crept upon him, he had prest Peona's busy hand against his lips, And still, a-sleeping, held her finger-tips In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps A patient watch over the stream that creeps Windingly by it, so the quiet made

Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade

Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling

Down in the blue bells, or a wren light rustling Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard.

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,

That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfined
Restraint! imprison'd liberty! great key
To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,
Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,
Echoing grottoes full of tumbling waves
And moonlight; ay, to all the mazy world
Of silvery enchantment!--who, upfurl'd
Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour,
But renovates and lives?

THE HUNTER'S VISION.

By W. C. BRYANT.

UPON a rock that, high and sheer,
Rose from the mountain's breast,
A weary hunter of the deer

Had sat him down to rest,

And bared to the soft summer air
His hot red brow and sweaty hair.

All dim in haze the mountains lay,
With dimmer vales between ;
And rivers glimmer'd on their way,
By forests faintly seen;

While ever rose a murmuring sound,
From brooks below, and bees around.

He listen'd, till he seem'd to hear
A strain so soft and low,
That whether in the mind or ear
The listener scarce might know.
With such a tone, so sweet and mild,
The watching mother lulls her child.

"Thou weary huntsman," thus it said,
"Thou, faint with toil and heat,
The pleasant land of rest is spread
Before thy very feet,

And those whom thou wouldst gladly see
Are waiting there to welcome thee."

He look'd, and 'twixt the earth and sky,
Amid the noontide haze,

A shadowy region met his eye,
And grew beneath his gaze,
As if the vapours of the air
Had gather'd into shapes so fair.

Groves freshen'd as he look'd, and flowers
Show'd bright on rocky bank,

And fountains well'd beneath the bowers
Where deer and pheasant drank.
He saw the glittering streams, he heard
The rustling bough and twittering bird.

And friends-the dead-in boyhood dear,
There lived and walk'd again,

And there was one who many a year
Within her grave had lain,

A fair young girl, the hamlet's pride-
His heart was breaking when she died:

Bounding, as was her wont, she came
Right towards his resting-place,
And stretch'd her hand and call'd his name,
With that sweet smiling face.
Forward, with fix'd and eager eyes,
The hunter lean'd, in act to rise:

Forward, he lean'd, and headlong down
Plunged from that craggy wall:

He saw the rocks, steep, stern, and brown,
An instant in his fall;

A frightful instant-and no more,

The dream and life at once were o'er.