Mantled a plaid with modest care,
And never brooch the folds combined
Above a heart more good and kind.
Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;
Not Katrine, in her mirror blue
Gives back the shaggy banks more true,
Than every free-born glance confess'd
The guileless movements of her breast ;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claim'd a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion pour'd a prayer,
Or tale of injury call'd forth
The indignant spirit of the North.
One only passion unreveal'd,

With maiden pride the maid conceal'd,

"A stranger I," the Huntsman said,
Advancing from the hazel shade.
The maid, alarm'd, with hasty oar,
Push'd her light shallop from the shore,
And when a space was gain'd between,
Closer she drew her bosom's screen;
(So forth the startled swan would swing,
So turn to prune his ruffled wing.)
Then safe, though flutter'd and amazed,
She paused, and on the stranger gazed.
Not his the form, nor his the eye,
That youthful maidens wont to fly.

-Scott (Lady of the Lake).

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8. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786.

Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem.

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie Lark, companion meet,

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9.-ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

-Burns.

50

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :

"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,—

5

That thou, light-wingéd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen-green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

10

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvéd earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth !

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

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Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

30

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards :
Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalméd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy-wine,

45

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

50

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a muséd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

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To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy !

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-
To thy high requiem become a sod.

60

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

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Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

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Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

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Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music :-do I wake or sleep?

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-Keats.

10.-SONNET XCVIII.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odors or in hue,

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