COME HOME. This pretty lyric was taken a long time since from one of the It is supposed to be addressed by an American American magazines lady to her brother in London. COME home. Would I could send my spirit o'er the deep, Come home. Come to the hearts that love thee, to the eyes Come home. Come to the hearth-stone of thy earlier days, Brother, come home. Come home. It is not home without thee; the lone seat In Is still unclaim'd where thou wert wont to be; In vain we list for what should herald thee. Brother, come home. Come home. We've nursed for thee the sunny buds of spring, Brother, come home. Come home. Would I could send my spirit o'er the deep, TO THE HUMBLE BEE. RALPH WALDO EMERSON is not only a philosopher, he is a poet; indeed his philosophy is more the creature of the imagination than of the reason. Beautiful as are some of his essays, they will be found upon close examination to be rhapsodies rather than arguments; thoughts, not reasonings; dogmas, not proofs. But it is as a poet that we introduce him here, and no reader of the following lyric will hesitate to give him that title. The following poem might vie with Anacreon's "Ode to the Grasshopper." BURLY, dozing, humble Bee! Where thou art is clime for me. Sailor of the atmosphere, Swimmer through the waves of air, Voyager of light and noon, Epicurean of June, Wait, I prithee, till I come Within ear-shot of thy hum— All without is martyrdom. When the South wind, in May days, With a net of shining haze Silvers the horizon wall, And, with softness touching all, Tints the human countenance With a colour of romance, And, infusing subtle heats, Telling of countless sunny hours, Aught unsavoury or unclean Hath my insect never seen, Grass with green flag half-mast high, Wiser far than human seer, TO MY LOVE. SHAKSPERE'S Sonnets are seldom read, but they abound in truest poetry. Perhaps it is that there is no reading so dull as a collection of sonnets. They are only interesting, and their beauties can only be appreciated, when perused singly, scattered among other poems of structure more various, and to the ear more pleasing. It is thus that we shall introduce the choicest sonnets in our language, to sparkle here and there amid the more conspicuous gems. So we may hope that they will be read, and receive the meed of applause that is their due. SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day? Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; THE BELEAGUERED CITY. Again we turn to the pages of LONGFELLOW for one of his most effective compositions. The legend is admirably told, the ghostly picture graphically sketched by a few masterly touches, and the simile singularly apt and well sustained. I HAVE read in some old marvellous tale- Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, There stood, as in an awful dream, White as a sea-fog, landward bound, No other voice nor sound was there, But, when the old cathedral bell Down the broad valley fast and far Up rose the glorious morning star, I have read in the marvellous heart of man, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Encamp'd beside Life's rushing stream, Upon its midnight battle-ground And with a sorrowful, deep sound And, when the solemn and deep church-bell The midnight phantoms feel the spell, The shadows sweep away. Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled; Faith shineth as a morning star; A SUMMER MORNING. THOMAS MILLER was a real working basket-maker, a true uneducated poet; and while following this humble calling he felt the impulses of genius, and his emotions shaped themselves into verse. He excels in descriptions of the country, of which he is evidently a passionate lover, and his pictures of it have a truth which every reader will recognise, just as we feel the truth of a landscape by Creswick or David Cox. This passage from one of his poems is a good specimen of his capacities. No print of sheep-track yet hath crushed a flower. |