And far in heaven, the while,

The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,— The sweetest of the year.

Where now the solemn shade,

Verdure and gloom where many branches meet; So grateful, when the noon of summer made The valleys sick with heat?

Let in through all the trees

Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright;

Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze,
Twinkles like beams of light.

The rivulet, late unseen,

Where bickering through the shrubs its waters

run,

Shines with the image of its golden screen

And glimmerings of the sun.

But, 'neath yon crimson tree,

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,

Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,

Her blush of maiden shame.

Autumn Woods

Oh, Autumn! why so soon

Depart the hues that make thy forests glad, Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, And leave thee wild and sad?

Ah! 'twere a lot too blest

For ever in thy colored shades to stray;
Amid the kisses of the soft south-west

To rove and dream for

aye;

The passions and the cares that wither life,
And waste its little hour.

The Destruction of Sennacherib

LORD BYRON

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the

fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and

gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

Where the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is

green,

That host with their banners at sunset were

seen;

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and

strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and

chill,

The Destruction of Sennacherib

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all

wide,

But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

bymn to the Night

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her 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.

7

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.