EVE'S ADDRESS TO ADAM AFTER HER DREAM.
Which he had plucked: the pleasant savoury smell
So quickened appetite, that I, methought,
Could not but taste. Forthwith up to the clouds
With him I flew, and underneath beheld
The earth outstretched immense, a prospect wide,
And various, wondering at my flight and change
To this high exaltation; suddenly
My guide was gone; and I, methought, sunk down
And fell asleep: but O, how glad I waked
To find this but a dream!
SECTION IV.-MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
I. THE SEA GULL.
(GERALD GRIFFIN.)
Gerald Griffin, well known as the author or "The Munster Tales," "The Collegians," and other stories illustrative of Irish character, was born in Limerick in 1803. Tired of the bustling world, he entered a monastery in Cork, in 1838, and two years afterwards died of typhus fever.
WHITE bird of the tempest! O beautiful thing,
With the bosom of snow, and the motionless wing;
Now sweeping the billow, now floating on high,
Now bathing thy plumes in the light of the sky;
Now poising o'er ocean thy delicate form,
Now breasting the surge with thy bosom so warm;
Now darting aloft, with a heavenly scorn,
Now shooting along, like a ray of the morn;
Now lost in the folds of the cloud-curtained dome,
Now floating abroad like a flake of the foam;
Now silently poised o'er the war of the main,
Like the Spirit of Charity brooding o'er pain;
Now gliding with pinion all silently furled,
Like an angel descending to comfort the world!
Thou seem'st to my spirit, as upward I gaze,
And see thee, now clothed in mellowest rays,
Now lost in the storm-driven vapours, that fly
Like hosts that are routed across the broad sky,
Like a pure spirit, true to its virtue and faith,
'Mid the tempests of nature, of passion, and death!
Rise! beautiful emblem of purity, rise,
On the sweet winds of Heaven, to thine own brilliant skies;
Still higher! still higher! till, lost to our sight,
Thou hidest thy wings in a mantle of light;
And I think how a pure spirit gazing on thee,
Must long for that moment—the joyous and free
When the soul, disembodied from Nature, shall spring,
Unfettered, at once to her Maker and King;
When the bright day of service and suffering past,
Shapes, fairer than thine, shall shine round her at last,
While, the standard of battle triumphantly furled,
She smiles like a victor, serene on the world!
ON the cross-beam under the Old South Bell
The nest of a pigeon is builded well;
In summer and winter that bird is there,
Out and in with the morning air.
I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet;
And I often watch him as he springs,
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shade has passed,
And the belfry edge is gained at last.
"Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There's a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel-
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.
Whatever is rung on that noisy bell-
Chime of the hour or funeral knell-
The dove in the belfry must hear it well.
When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon —
When the sexton cheerily rings for noon-
When the clock strikes clear at morning light--
When the child is waked with "nine at night
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air,
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer-
Whatever tale in the bell is heard,
He broods on his folded feet unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smoothe his breast,
Then drops again with filmed eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.
Sweet bird! I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee!
With wings to fly to wood and glen;
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men;
And daily, with unwilling feet,
I tread, like thee, the crowded street;
But, unlike me, when day is o'er,
Thou canst dismiss the world and soar,
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,
Canst smoothe the feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.
III. THE KING OF THE WIND.
HE burst through the ice-pillared gates of the north,
And away on his hurricane wings he rushed forth:
He exulted all free in his might and his speed,
He mocked at the Lion, and taunted the steed:
He whistled along through each cranny and creek;
He whirled o'er the mountains with hollow-toned shriek;
The arrow and eagle were laggard behind,
And alone in his flight sped the King of the Wind!
He swept o'er the earth-the tall battlements fell,
And he laughed, as they crumbled, with maniac yell;
The broad oak of the wood dared to wrestle again,
Till, wild in his fury, he hurled it in twain :
He grappled with pyramids, works of an age,
And dire records were left of his havoc and rage.
No power
could brave him, no fetters could bind:
Supreme in his sway was the King of the Wind!
He careered o'er the waters with death and despair;
He wrecked the proud ship—and his triumph was there!
The cheeks that had blanched not at foeman or blade, At the sound of his breathing turned pale and afraid : He rocked the stanch light-house, he shivered the mast; He howled; the strong life-boat in fragments was cast; And he roared in his glory, "Where, where will ye find A despot so great as the King of the Wind?"
William Cullen Bryant, one of the most popular, perhaps the most popular, of living American poets, was born in the State of Massachusetts in 1794. He studied for the profession of the law, but turned journalist, and in 1828 became co-editor of the New York Evening Post.
WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty, and spheres of flame,
From the void abyss by myriads came,
In the joy of youth, as they darted away
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,
And this was the song the bright ones sung :
Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie:
Each sun with the worlds that round us roll,
Each planet poised on her turning pole,
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.
For the Source of Glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides;
Lo, yonder the living splendours play!
Away, on your joyous path, away!
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