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POEMS OF IMAGINATION AND FANCY

1. HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

"NIGHT appears, and anxiety and wretchedness are suspended. To be comfortable, nothing is necessary but our beds; and when sleep closes our eye-lids, our wants are satisfied. Night equalizes the condition of the beggar and the monarch; both enjoy a blessing which no money can procure."-Sturm.

"If we look at the stars, that host of white robed pilgrims who travel across the vault of the nightly sky, the imagination cannot conceive any thing quieter, calmer, or more unassuming. They are the exquisite and perfect emblems of loveliness and humility in high station." -Archdeacon Hare.

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I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through the 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-beloved, Night!

LONGFELLOW.

II. THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE GLOW-WORM. "THE nightingale haunts close shrubberies, copses, and dense coverts in low, humid situations, and, as it has been observed, more especially where the cowslip grows plentifully. To these favourite spots the males, which precede by about ten days the females, on their visit to our shores, immediately make their way, and begin their rich strains of invitation, striving as it would seem, to excel each other in the fulness of their notes and the luxuriance of their modulations. This bird, as its name implies, sings at night, and its strains, heard by calm moonlight, when all is silent around, are very pleasing; but it is not only at night that this songster pours out his melody; he sings also during the day, but his strain, mingled with the voices of other birds, is less effective, less captivating than when uttered during the moonlight hour, and listened to amidst the shadowy stillness of its embowered retreat."

"In our country the glowworm, the wingless female of a beetle, Sampyris noctiluca, is well known; and in the southern parts of our island may be seen at night during the months of July and August, gemming the mossy couches with brilliant stars. The light proceeds from the abdomen; but though by far the most intense in the female, it is not altogether absent in the male, or even in the larvæ."-Pictorial Museum.

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THE STREET MUSICIAN; OR, POWER OF MUSIC.

When, looking eagerly around,

He spied far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark.

So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, right eloquent :

“Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,
“As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 'twas the self-same Power divine,
Taught you to sing, and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night.”

The songster heard this short oration,
And warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.

Hence jarring sectaries' may learn
Their real interest to discern;

That brother should not war with brother,
And worry and devour each other;

But sing and shine by sweet consent,

Till life's poor transient night is spent ;
Respecting, in each other's case,
The gifts of nature and of grace.

Those Christians best deserve the name,2
Who studiously make peace their aim :-
Peace, both the duty and the prize
Of him that creeps and him that flies.

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CowPER.

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III. THE STREET-MUSICIAN; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC.

"ONE of the most pure and innocent pleasures which we can enjoy we owe to music. It possesses the power of charming our ears, southing our passions, affecting our hearts, and influencing our propensi

ties. How often has music dissipated our gloom, quickened the vital spirits, and ennobled our sentiments! An art so pleasing and useful well deserves our attention; and calls upon us to employ it to the glory of our beneficent Creator."-Sturm.

AN Orpheus! an Orpheus!—he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim-
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheer'd, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthen'd soul is no longer opprest.

That errand-bound 'prentice was passing in haste—
What matter! he's caught-and his time runs to waste-
The newsman is stopp'd, though he stops on the fret,"
And the half-breathless lamplighter-he's in the net!

The porter sits down on the weight which he bore ;
The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store ;-
If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease;
She sees the musician, 'tis all that she sees!

That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
Can he keep himself still, if he would? oh, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.

Mark that cripple,—but little would tempt him to try
To dance to the strain and to fling his crutch by !—
That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.

Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls3 in a dream:
They are deaf to your murmurs-they care not for you,
Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!

1. Who was Orpheus?

2. What is meant by stops on the fret?

WORDSWORTH.

3. Souls, what case?

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

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IV. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. "FOR the first few years of our terrestrial apprenticeship, we have not much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly to look about us over the workshop and see others work, till we have understood the work a little and can handle this or that."Carlyle.

Derivations.

Etymology.

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YE distant spires, ye antique towers!
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;1

And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights the expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among,
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ah, fields beloved in vain,2

3

Where once my careless childhood strayed,

A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow

A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,

My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And redolent of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green

The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?

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