AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. O forty miles off Aberdour 'Tis fifty fathoms deep, And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, Wi' the Scots lords at his feet. ANONYMOUS. AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. How sweet it were, if without feeble fright, At evening in our room, and bend on ours LEIGH HUNT. THE MURDERED TRAVELLER. The fragrant birch, above him, hung And many a vernal blossom sprung, The red-bird warbled, as he wrought But there was weeping far away, With watching many an anxious day, Were sorrowful and dim. They little knew, who loved him so, When shouting o'er the desert snow, Nor how, when round the frosty pole To banquet on the dead; Nor how, when strangers found his bones, They dressed the hasty bier, And marked his grave with nameless stones, Unmoistened by a tear. But long they looked, and feared, and wept, Within his distant home; And dreamed, and started as they slept, For joy that he was come. Long, long they looked-but never spied Nor knew the fearful death he died, Far down that narrow glen. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. LOVE. He stood beside a cottage lone, And listened to a lute, One summer eve, when the breeze was gone, And the nightingale was mute. The moon was watching on the hill; The stream was staid, and the maples still, To hear a lover's suit, That, half a vow, and half a prayer, Spoke less of hope than of despair, And rose into the calm, soft air, As sweet and low, As he had heard-O, woe! O, woe! "By every hope that earthward clings, By faith that mounts on angel wings, By dreams that make night-shadows bright, In peace or strife, in storm or shine, And for its soft and sole reply, And yet they made the waters start Into his eyes who heard, For they told of a most loving heart, Of a heart that loved though it loved in vain, A love that took an early root Like trees that never grow to fruit, Like ships that sailed for sunny isles, But never came to shore ! THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY. |