Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,
In color though varied, in beauty may vie,
And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye;
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
'T is the clime of the East; 't is the land of the Sun,
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done ?
O, wild as the accents of lover's farewell
Are the hearts wrjich they bear and the tales which they tell !
V . (108)
" Wliere the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine.
F
NGLAND'S sun was slowly setting
O'er the hills so far away,
Filling all the land with beauty
At the close of one sad day;
And the last rays kiss'd the forehead
Of a man and maiden fair,
He with step so slow and weakened,
She with sunny, floating hair;
He with sad bowed head, and thoughtful,
She with lips so cold and white,
Struggling to keep back the murmur,
" Curfew must not ring to-night."
"Sexton/' Bessie's white lips faltered,
Pointing to the prison old,
With its walls so dark and gloomy,
Walls so dark, and damp, and cold,
" I've a lover in that prison,
Doomed this very night to die,
At the ringing of the Curfew,
And no earthly help is nigh.
Cromwell will not come till sunset,"
And her face grew strangely white,
As she spoke in husky whispers,
" Curfew must not ring to-night."
\
v . , 71
HO THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
" Bessie," calmly spoke the Sexton
Every word pierced her young heart
Like a thousand gleaming arrows
Like a deadly poisoned dart;
" Long, long years I've rung the Curfew
From that gloomy shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset,
It has told the twilight hour;
I have done my duty ever,
Tried to do it just and right,
Now I'm old, I will not miss it;
Girl, the Curfew rings to-night ! "
Wild her eyes and pale her features,
Stern and white her thoughtful brow,
And within her heart's deep centre,
Bessie made a solemn vow;
She had listened while the judges
Read, without a tear or sigh,
" At the ringing of the Curfew
Basil Underwood must die."
And her breath came fast and faster,
And her eyes grew large and bright
One low murmur, scarcely spoken
" Curfew must not ring to-night !"
She with light step bounded forward,
Sprang within the old church door,
Left the old man coming slowly,
Paths he'd often trod before,
Not one moment paused the maiden,
But with cheek and brow aglow,
~~7\
CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT. Ill
Staggered up the gloomy tower,
Where the bell swung to and fro:
Then she climbed the slimy ladder,
Dark, without one ray of light,
Upward still, her pale lips saying: .
" Curfew shall not ring to-night."
She has reached the topmost ladder,
O'er her hangs the great dark bell.
And the awful gloom beneath her,
Like the pathway down to hell;
See, the ponderous tongue is swinging,
'Tis the hour of Curfew now
And the sight has chilled her bosom,
Stopped her breath and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring ? No, never !
Her eyes flash with sudden light,
As she springs and grasps it firmly
" Curfew shall not ring to-night ! "
Out she swung, far out, the city
Seemed a tiny speck below;
There, 'twixt heaven and earth suspended,
As the bell swung to and fro;
And the half-deaf Sexton ringing
(Years he had not heard the bell,)
And he thought the twilight Curfew
Rang young Basil's funeral knell;
Still the maiden clinging firmly,
Cheek and brow so pale and white,
Stilled her frightened heart's wild beating
"Curfew shall not ring to-night"
\
H2 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
It was o'er the bell ceased swaying,
And the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the damp old ladder,
Where for hundred years before
Human foot had not been planted;
And what she this night had done,
Should be told in long years after
As the rays of setting sun
Light the sky with mellow beauty,
Aged sires with heads of white,
Tell the children why the Curfew
Did not ring that one sad night.
O'er the distant hills came Cromwell;
Bessie saw him, and her brow,
Lately white with sickening terror,
Glows with sudden beauty now;
At his feet she told her story,
Showed her hands all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face so haggard,
With a look so sad and worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity^
Lit his eyes with misty light;
" Go, your lover lives ! " cried Cromwell;
" Curfew shall not ring to-night."
\
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.
t NCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered,
weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there
came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door,
" Tis some visitor," I mutter'd, " tapping at my chamber-
door
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the
floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow sorrow for the lost
Lenore,
' For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name
Lenore,
Nameless .here forevermore.
And the silken, sad, tncertain rustling of each purple curtain,
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt
before;
(113) \
H4 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
-^ <:-!> s-
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door;
That it is, and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger: hesitating then no longer*
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber-
door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you" here I opened wide the
door:
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wonder-
ing, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream
before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no
token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
" Lenore ! "
This / whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
" LENORE ! "
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me
burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before.
" Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window-
lattice;
Let me see then what thereat is and this mystery explore,
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore;
'Tis the wind, and nothing more."
v~
THE RAVEN. 115
->
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or
stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber-
door,
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber- door
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
" Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art
sure no raven;
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly
shore,
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian
shore ?"
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore ! "
Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so
plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber-
door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber-
door
With such name as " Nevermore ! "
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did out-
pour,
V \
PV
A
Il6 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he
fluttered
Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends have
flown before,
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown
before." ,
Then the bird said, " Nevermore ! "
Startled at the stillness, broken by reply so aptly spoken,
" Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock and
store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Follow'd fast and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden.
bore,
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore,
Of ' Never nevermore ! ' "
But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust
and door,
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird
of yore
Meant in croaking " Nevermore ! "
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burn'd into my bosom's
core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated
o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating
o'er
She shall press ah ! nevermore !
THE RAVEN.
117
Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an
unseen censer
Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted
floor.
" Wretch," I cried, " thy God hath lent thee by 'these angels
he hath sent thee
Respite respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost
Lenore ! "
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore ! "
" Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil! prophet still, if bird
or devil !
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here
ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted
On this home by horror haunted tell me truly, I implore,
Is there is there balm in Gilead ? tell me tell me, I im-
plore ! "
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore ! "
"Prophet! " said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird
or devil !
By that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both
adore,
Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if, within the distant
Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name
Lenore;
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name
Lenope ! "
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore ! "
\
n8
THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I
shrieked, upstarting,
" fc Get thee back into the tempes,t and the night's Plutonian
shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath
spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my
door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from
off- my door ! "
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore ! "
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is
dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow
on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the
floor
Shall be lifted NEVERMORE !
BY WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.
Y pretty, budding, breathing flower,
Methinks, if I to-morrow
Could manage, just for h^alf an hour,
Sir Joshua's brush to borrow,
I might immortalize a few
Of all the myriad graces
Which Time, while yet they all are new,
With newer still replaces.
I'd paint, my child, your deep blue eyes,
The quick and earnest flashes;
I'd paint the fringe that round them lies,
The fringe of long dark lashes.
I'd draw with most fastidious care,
One eyebrow, then the other;
And that fair forehead, broad and fair,
The forehead of your mother.
("9)
\
120 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
I'd oft retouch the dimpled cheek
Where health in sunshine dances;
And oft the pouting lips, where speak
A thousand voiceless fancies;
And the soft neck would keep me long,
The neck, more smooth and snowy
Than ever yet in schoolboy's song
Had Caroline and Chloe.
Nor less on those twin rounded arms
My new-found skill would linger ;
Nor less upon the rosy charms
Of every tiny finger ;
Nor slight the small feet, little one,
So prematurely clever
That, though they neither walk nor run,
I think they'd jump for ever.
*
But then your odd, endearing ways,
What study e'er could catch them ?
Your aimless gestures, aimless plays
What canvas e'er could match them ?
Your lively leap of merriment,
Your murmur of petition,
Your serious silence of content,
Your laugh of recognition.
Here were a puzzling toil, indeed,
For Art's most fine creations !
Grow on, sweet baby; we will need,
To notice your transformations,
\
7
MY PRETTY, BUDDING, BREATHING FLOWER.
121
No picture of your form or face,
Your waking or your sleeping,
But that which Love shall daily trace,
And trust to Memory's keeping.
Hereafter, when revolving years
Have made you tall and twenty, >
And brought you blended hopes and fears,
And sighs and slaves in plenty,
May those who watch our little saint
Among her tasks and duties,
Feel all her virtues hard to paint,
As we now deem her beauties.
f^ISTEN to the water-mill,
Through the live-long day,
How the clanking of the wheels
Wears the hours away !
Languidly the autumn wind
Stirs the greenwood leaves;
From the fields the reapers sing,
Binding up the sheaves,
And a proverb haunts my mind,
As a spell is cast:
"The mill will never grind
With the water that has passed."
Take the lesson to thyself,
Living heart and true;
Golden years are fleeting by,
Youth is passing too;
Learn to make the most of life,
Lose no happy day,
Time will never bring thee back
Chances swept away.
Leave no tender word unsaid;
Love while life shall last
" The mill will never grind
With the water that has passed."
(122)
THE WATER THAT HAS PASSED. 123
Work while yet the daylight shines,
Man of strength and will;
Never does the streamlet glide
Useless by the mill.
Wait not until to-morrow's sun
Beams upon the way;
All that thou canst call thy own
Lies in thy to-day.
Power, intellect, and health,
May not, cannot last;
" The mill will never grind
With the water that has passed."
Oh, the wasted hours of life
That have drifted by ;
Oh, the good we might have done,
Lost without a sigh ;
Love that we might once have saved
By a single word ;
Thoughts conceived, but never penned,
Perishing unheard.
Take the proverb to thine heart,
Take ! oh, hold it fast !
"The mill will never grind
With the water that has passed."
2=
V
7
BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
T was our wedding day
A month ago, dear heart, I hear you say.
If months, or years, or ages since have passed,
I know not: I have ceased to question Time.
I only know that once there pealed a chime
Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast,
And all stood back, and none my right denied,
And forth we walked: the world was free and wide
Before us. Since that day
I count my life: the Past is washed away.
II.
It was no dream, that vow:
It was the voice that woke me from a dream,
A happy dream, I think; but I am waking now,
And drink the splendor of a sun supreme
That turns the mist of former tears to gold.
Within these arms I hold
The fleeting promise, chased so long in vain:
Ah, weary bird ! thou wilt not fly again:
Thy wings are clipped, thou canst no more depart,-
Thy nest is builded in my heart.
FROM "THE WINTER MORNING WALK."
BY WILLIAM COWPER.
'is morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportioned limb
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair,
As they designed to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,
Preposterous sight ! the legs without the man.
v
128 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
*s
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not, like hungry man,
Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,
And, patient of the slow-paced swain's delay.
He from the stack carves out the accustomed load,
Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the solid mass:
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away: no needless care
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned
The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.
Shaggy and lean and shrewd with pointed ears,
And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur,
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk
Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it withr his snout;
Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy.
Now from the roost, or from the neighboring pile,
" There they wait their wonted fodder."
10
IN /
WINTER. 120
Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side,
Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call
The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,
Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge.
The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves
To seize the fair occasion. Well they eye
The scattered grain, and thievishly resolved
To escape the impending famine, often scared
As oft to return, a pert voracious kind.
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the search of sunny nook,
Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned
To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut, and, wading at their head
With well-considered steps, seems to resent
His altered gait and stateliness retrenched.
How find the myriads, that in summer cheer
The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now ?
Earth yields them naught; the imprisoned worm is safe
Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs
Lie covered close; and berry-bearing thorns,
That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose),
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
The long protracted rigor of the year
Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
An instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die.
Da me basia. CATULLUS.
BY JOHN GODFREY SAXE.
ISS me softly and speak to me low,
Malice has ever a vigilant ear,
What if Malice were lurking near ?
Kiss me, dear !
Kiss me softly and speak to me low.
II.
Kiss me softly and speak to me low,
Envy too has a watchful ear:
What if Envy should chance to hear?
Kiss me, dear !
Kiss me softly and speak to me low.
III.
Kiss me softly and speak to me low;
Trust me, darling, the time is near
When~ lovers may love with never a fear,-
Kiss me, dear !
Kiss me softly and speak to me low.
(130)
\
A WISH.
Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.
The village-church among the trees,
Where first our marriage-vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze
And point with taper spire to heaven.
\
\
BY HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
HE is not fair to outward view,
. - As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me:
O, then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.
But now her looks are coy and cold;
To mine they ne'er reply;
And yet I cease not to behold,
The love-light in her eye:
Her very frowns are better far
Than smiles of other maidens are !
(136)
.'
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
Y girl hath violet eyes and yellow hair,
A soft hand, like a lady's, small and fair,
A sweet face pouting in a white straw
bonnet,
A tiny foot, and little boot upon it;
And all her finery to charm beholders
Is the gray shawl drawn tight around her
shoulders,
The plain stuff-gown and collar white as
snow,
And sweet red petticoat that peeps below.
But gladly in the busy town goes she,
Summer and winter, fearing nobodie;
She pats the pavement with her fairy feet,
With fearless eyes she charms the crowded street;
And in her pockets lie, in lieu of gold,
A lucky sixpence and a thimble old.
V
We lodged in the same house a- year ago:
She on the topmost floor, I just below,
She, a poor milliner, content and wise,
I, a poor city clerk, with hopes to rise;
(i37) \
138 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
And, long ere we were friends, I learnt to love
The little angel on the floor above.
For, every morn, ere from my bed I stirred,
Her chamber door would open, and I heard,
And listened, blushing to, her coming down,
And palpitated with her rustling gown,
And tingled while her foot went downward slow,
Creaked like a cricket, passed, and died below;
Then peeping from the window, pleased and sly,
I saw the pretty shining face go by,
Healthy and rosy, fresh from slumber sweet,
A sunbeam in the quiet morning street.
And every night, when in from work she tript,
Red to the ears I from my chamber slipt,
That I might hear upon the narrow stair
Her low " Good evening," as she passed me there.'
And when her door was closed, below sat I,
And hearkened stilly as she stirred on high,
Watched the red firelight shadows in the room,
Fashioned her face before me in the gloom,
And heard her close the window, lock the door,
Moving about more lightly than before,
And thought, " She is undressing now ! " and O,
My cheeks were hot, my heart was in a glow !
And I made pictures of her, standing bright
Before the looking-glass in bed-gown white,
Unbinding in a knot her yellow hair,
Then kneeling timidly to say a prayer;
Till, last, the floor creaked softly overhead,
'Neath bare feet tripping to the little bed,
And all was hushed. Yet still I hearkened on,
Till the faint sounds about the streets were gone;
V
THE LITTLE MILLINER.
/
139
And saw her slumbering with lips apart,
One little hand upon her little heart,
The other pillowing a face that smiled
In slumber like the slumber of a child,
The bright hair shining round the small white ear,
The soft breath stealing visible and clear,
And mixing with the moon's, whose frosty gleam
Made round her rest a vaporous light of dream.
How free she wandered in the wicked place,
Protected only by her gentle face !
She saw bad things how could she choose but see ?
She heard of wantonness and misery;
The city closed around her night and day,
But lightly, happily, she went her way.
Nothing of evil that she saw or heard
Could touch a heart so innocently stirred, 1
By simple hopes that cheered it through the storm,
And little flutterings that kept it warm.
No power had she to reason out her needs,
To give the whence and wherefore of her deeds;
But she was good and pure amid the strife,
By virtue of the joy that was her life.
Here, where a thousand spirits daily fall,
Where heart and soul and senses turn to gall,
She floated, pure as innocence could be,
Like a small sea-bird on a stormy sea,
Which breasts the billows, wafted to and fro,
Fearless, uninjured, while the strong winds blow,
While the clouds gather, and the waters roar,
And mighty ships are broken on the shore.
140 THE CASKET OF POETICAL GEMS.
'T was when the spring was coming, when the snow
Had melted, and fresh winds began to blow,
And girls were selling violets in the town,
That suddenly a fever struck me down.
The world was changed, the sense of life was pained,