Cherwell from the Terrace.

(Continued.)

"Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,
Me dicente cavis impositam ilicem
Saxis, unde loquaces

Lymphæ desiliunt tuæ."-HORACE.

ARISTOCRATIC stream!

Thou who dost brook

No trade upon thy waters! never soil
Thy purity the barge and sons of toil!

For gentle lovers only dost thou look:

Ne'er hast thou been, ne'er shalt thou be, forsook
By Youth and Pleasure, who with dripping oar
Through the green meadows on thy banks explore
Each azure bend, and lily-bearing nook;

The pool by bathers sought, glassy and still:
The shady reach where the dark willows bend:
Thine angler-haunted current by the mill :-
Beautiful river! why should I rehearse
Faintly thy charms, when he who was my friend
Hath given thee sweeter and more burning verse.*

"The Cherwell Water Lily."

*

A Thought on Past Friendship.

"In a word, but now worth this,

And now worth nothing."-Merchant of Venice.

Χείματος γὰρ ἀγρίου

τυχούσα, λίμενας ἦλθες ἐς εὐήνεμους.

Andromache.

NAY, never speak to me again of love;
For I have ventured once upon Love's sea
My trustful spirit, like an argosie
Trick'd bravely out with flaunting flags above;
Its freight, the spices from some Eastern grove,
Or sunny isle, with gems of priceless cost-
Far o'er the faithless waters are they tost;

For vain with fickle winds my vessel strove,
When all my treasures (hopes and joys) were lost—
Why should the lonely-hearted mariner

From out his sheltered solitary cove,

A calm and quiet harbour, seek to stir,
Fearful of waves with bare life hardly crost?
Nay, never speak to me again of love!

Evening Thoughts.

"The twilight star to heav'n,

And the summer dew to flowers,

And rest to us is given

In the cool soft evening hours."

MRS. HEMANS.

THE mind, o'erwrought with the day's pleasing

toils;

Hard mastery of old black-lettered law,

The gleaning of wise saying and quaint saw
From half-forgotten book; turning up soils
Of learning long left fallow; trophying spoils
Of conquer'd knowledge; stooping o'er to draw
From Poetry's deep wells; not without awe
Threading the maze that Plato's spirit coils;
Or holier task, re-reading through The Book
First lisp'd in childhood at our Mother's knee;
The mind, now saturate with calm, doth rest
Awhile, till Fancy dons her silver vest;

And thoughts on thoughts forth singly flashing look,
Like stars, through the dark Heav'n of Memory.

Recurring Fancies.

"The present still is echo of the past."-YOUNGE.

THEY Come! The phantoms of departed Thought,
All life-like in their beauty, tho' their gleam
Is of a fainter presence, and they seem
Like spectral images of roses wrought
By the old Alchymist, whose magic caught
The faded flower's fast-fleeting soul, a dream
As fair as harmless-

Hush! Their voices stream

Upon me with a lingering echo brought

Back from the Past with softer, sweeter, note!

Dim ghosts of vanish'd sunlight! sounds that throng My spirit like the well-remember'd song

Of nightingales that used at eve to float,

From her laburnum-blossom'd margin flung,
O'er Cherwell's lilied wave, when I was young.

Nightingales in the Botanical Gardens.

Πυκνόπτεροι δ'

Ἐσὼ κατ ̓ αὖτον εὔστομουσ ̓ ἀήδονες.—SOPH. Ed. Col.
"Most musical, most melancholy."-Il Penseroso.

"O nightingale, thou surely art

A creature of a fiery heart:

Those notes of thine-they pierce and pierce

Tumultuous harmony and fierce :

Thou sing'st as if the God of Wine

Had help'd thee to a Valentine.-WORDSWORTH.

WHO said, sweet Nightingale, thy song was sad?* Hark! from the neighbouring grove's thick golden

bloom

Still faintly shining through the deep'ning gloom,
Bursts thy triumphant music, wildly glad!

So must have shouted the Bacchante, mad
With irrepressible joy; thou from the rout

In thine own Tempe's vale did'st learn the shout:
Nor stops the strain, but swells; for thou hast bade
Thy mates mid the laburnum blossoms vie

With thee for mastery, and twenty throats
In tuneful quarrel wake for victory :-
Up with the joyous discord, as it floats
On the close air, my lagging spirits fly:-

Thanks, gentle warblers, for your mirthful notes.

*See note E, at the end.