Alas! where'er the current tends
Regret pursues and with it blends!
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends
By Skiddaw seen;
Neighbors we were, and loving friends
We might have been-

True friends, though diversely inclined;
But heart with heart and mind with mind,
Where the main fibres are entwined

Through nature's skill,

May even by contraries be joined

More closely still.

The tear will start, and let it flow;
Thou "poor inhabitant below,"
At this dread moment-even so-
Might we together

Have sat and talked where gowans blow,
Or on wild heather.

What treasures would have then been placed
Within my reach, of knowledge graced
By fancy, what a rich repast!

But why go on ?—

Oh! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast,
His grave grass-grown.

There, too, a son, his joy and pride,
(Not three weeks past the stripling died),
Lies gathered to his father's side-
Soul-moving sight!

Yet one to which is not denied
Some sad delight.

For he is safe, a quiet bed

Hath early found among the dead-
Harbored where none can be misled,
Wronged, or distrest;
And surely here it may be said

That such are blest.

And oh! for thee, by pitying grace
Checked ofttimes in a devious race-
May He who halloweth the place

Where man is laid,
Receive thy spirit in the embrace
For which it prayed!

Sighing, I turned away; but ere
Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear,
Music that sorrow comes not near-
A ritual hymn,
Chanted, in love that casts cut fcar,
By seraphim.

THOUGHTS,

SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE POET'S RESIDENCE.

Too frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow Was wreathed-"The Vision" tells us how

With holly spray,

He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear sister, throng

Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief,—

Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judginents may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,

Let us beside this limpid stream

Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight!
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right
His course was true-
When wisdom prospered in his sight,
And virtue grew.

Yes, freely let our hearts expand,
Freely as in youth's season bland,
When, side by side, his book in hand,
We wont to stray,

Our pleasure varying at command
Of each sweet lay.

How oft, inspired, must he have trod
These pathways, yon far-stretching road!
There lurks his home; in that abode,
With mirth elate,

Or in his nobly pensive mood,
The rustic sate.

Proud thoughts that image overawes:
Before it humbly let us pause,
And ask of nature from what cause.

And by what rules,

She trained her Burns to win applause
That shames the schools.

Through busiest street and loneliest glen Are felt the flashes of his pen;

He rules 'mid winter snows, and when Bees fill their hives;

Deep in the general heart of men

His power survives.

What need of fields in some far clime Where heroes, sages, bards sublime, And all that fetched the flowing rhyme From genuine springs,

Shall dwell together till old time

Folds up his wings?

Sweet mercy! to the gates of heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven— The rueful conflict, the heart riven

With vain endeavor,

And memory of earth's bitter leaven

Effaced for ever.

But why to him confine the prayer,
When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear
On the frail heart the purest share

With all that live?

The best of what we do and are,

Just God, forgive!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

BURNS.

No more these simple flowers belong
To Scottish maid and lover-
Sown in the common soil of song,

They bloom the wide world over.

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers,
The minstrel and the heather-
The deathless singer and the flowers
He sang of-live together.

Wild heather bells and Robert Burns!
The moorland flower and peasant!
How, at their mention, memory turns
Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold
And purple of adorning,
And manhood's noonday shadows hold
The dews of boyhood's morning—
The dews that washed the dust and soil
From off the wings of pleasure—

The sky that flecked the ground of toil
With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day-
The early harvest mowing,
The sky with sun and cloud at play,
And flowers with breezes blowing.

I hear the blackbird in the corn,
The locust in the haying;
And, like the fabled hunter's horn,
Old tunes my heart is playing.

How oft that day, with fond delay,
I sought the maple's shadow,
And sang with Burns the hours away,
Forgetful of the meadow!

653

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead
I heard the squirrels leaping-
The good dog listened while I read,
And wagged his tail in keeping.

I watched him while in sportive mood
I read "The Twa Dogs'" story,
And half believed he understood
The poet's allegory.

Sweet day, sweet songs!-The golden hours
Grew brighter for that singing,

From brook and bird and meadow flowers
A dearer welcome bringing.

New light on home-seen nature beamed,
New glory over woman;
And daily life and duty seemed

No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth
Of fact and feeling better

Than all the dreams that held my youth

A still repining debtor

That nature gives her handmaid, art,

The themes of sweet discoursing, The tender idyls of the heart

In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl,
Of loving knight and lady,
When farmer boy and barefoot girl

Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things
The romance underlying-