Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While, Cynthia checks her dragon
yoke,

Gently o'er th' accustomed oak; Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among

I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless

way;

And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removèd place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the

room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly

harm:

Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or un-
sphere

The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions
hold

The immortal mind, that hath forsook

Her mansion in this fleshly nook: And of those Demons that are

found

In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,

Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.
But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Museus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did
seek.

Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canacé to wife,
That own'd the virtuous ring and
glass,

And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards be-

Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep; And let some strange mysterious

dream

Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid.
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine
ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all heav'n before mine

eyes.

And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heav'n doth show,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures Melancholy give,
And I with thee will choose to live.
MILTON.

FROM THE BOTHIE OF TOBER NA VUOLICH.

THERE is a stream, I name not its

name, lest inquisitive tourist Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books, Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains,

Falling two miles through rowan

and stunted alder, enveloped Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample Spreads, to convey it, the glen with

heathery slopes on both sides: Broad and fair the stream, with

occasional falls and narrows; But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,

Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite,

Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up and raging onward, Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step

it, There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge

goes,

Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle, Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.

But in the interval here the boiling, pent-up water

Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin,

Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;

Beautiful there for color derived from green rocks under; Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising

Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness. Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch-boughs, Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway, Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection. You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of

Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural causeway Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the streamlet, Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden before them Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and

perfection of water, Picture-like beauty, seclusion sub

lime, and the goddess of bathing.

There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the glory of headers, Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty; There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended, Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending; There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and shouted.

Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening.

Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them, Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor; Turned from the track of the carts, and passing the stone and shingle, Piercing the wood, and skirting the

stream by the natural causeway,

Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up; and Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers, Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper.

And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once

more.

Yes, it was he, on the ledge, barelimbed, an Apollo, down-gazing,