Clitumnus' oxen wander by the plashing
Of Virgil's sacred river; and the bees
Pillage the heavy flowers in sunlight flashing
While the doves murmur from the ilex-trees.

Here Como's nightingale above the rowing

Sings its lament; and, doubled in the lake, He sees himself and boat, and softly showing, The clouds and distant hills a picture make.

Sorrento hangs there, crowned in memory's vision,
Starry with clustered orange, and below
An azure dream-world, soft with indecision,
Where dulse and tangle round mosaics grow.

Such is the album memory fills with treasures,
Hid in the heart, where love doth keep the key;
There in procession pass life's pains and pleasures,
Fresh and undying till it cease to be.

Thomas Gold Appleton.

TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE.

HE ceaseless rain is falling fast,

THE

And yonder gilded vane,

Immovable for three days past,
Points to the misty main.

It drives me in upon myself,
And to the fireside gleams,

L

To pleasant books that crowd my shelf, And still more pleasant dreams.

I read whatever bards have sung
Of lands beyond the sea,

And the bright days when I was young
Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again

The Alpine torrent's roar,

The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,

Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.

I fear no more the dust and heat,
No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another's feet
O'er many a lengthening league.

Let others traverse sea and land,
And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
Reading these poets' rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies
Beneath each changing zone,

And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with mine own.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

ENGLAND.

Aldborough.

THE FENS.

N rode Orlando, counting all the while

ON

The miles he passed, and every coming mile; Like all attracted things, he quicker flies,

The place approaching where the attraction lies;
When next appeared a dam so call the place
Where lies a road confined in narrow space;
A work of labor, for on either side

Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide,

With dikes on either hand by ocean's self supplied:
Far on the right the distant sea is seen,

And salt the springs that feed the marsh between ;
Beneath an ancient bridge, the straitened flood
Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud;
Near it a sunken boat resists the tide,
That frets and hurries to the opposing side;
The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow,
Bend their brown flowerets to the stream below,
Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow :

Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom,
Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume;
The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread
Partake the nature of their fenny bed;

Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom,

Grows the salt lavender that lacks perfume;
Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh,
And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh;
Low on the ear the distant billows sound,
And just in view appears their stony bound;
No hedge nor tree conceals the glowing sun,
Birds, save a watery tribe, the district shun,
Nor chirp among the reeds where bitter waters run.
George Crabbe.

THE RIVER.

ITH ceaseless motion comes and goes the tide,

WITH

Flowing, it fills the channel vast and wide; Then back to sea, with strong majestic sweep It rolls, in ebb yet terrible and deep; Here samphire-banks and salt-wort bound the flood, There stakes and sea-weeds withering on the mud; And higher up, a ridge of all things base, Which some strong tide has rolled upon the place. Thy gentle river boasts its pygmy boat, Urged on by pains, half grounded, half afloat; While at her stern an angler takes his stand, And marks the fish he purposes to land From that clear space, where, in the cheerful ray Of the warm sun, the scaly people play.