What objects are the fountains
        Of thy happy strain? 
      What fields, or waves, or mountains? 
        What shapes of sky or plain? 
    What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

      Teach me half the gladness
        That thy brain must know,
      Such harmonious madness
        From my lips would flow,
    The world should listen then, as I am listening now!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

 THE SANDS OF DEE.

I have often had the pleasure of riding across the coast from Chester, England, to Rhyl, on the north coast of Wales, where stretch “The Sands of Dee” (Charles Kingsley, 1819-75).  These purple sands at low tide stretch off into the sea miles away, and are said to be full of quicksands.

   “O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
          And call the cattle home,
          And call the cattle home,
      Across the sands of Dee.” 
    The western wind was wild and dark with foam
      And all alone went she.

    The western tide crept up along the sand,
          And o’er and o’er the sand,
          And round and round the sand,
      As far as eye could see. 
    The rolling mist came down and hid the land;
      And never home came she. 
    Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,—­
          A tress of golden hair,
          A drowned maiden’s hair,
      Above the nets at sea? 
    Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
      Among the stakes on Dee.

    They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
          The cruel crawling foam,
          The cruel hungry foam,
      To her grave beside the sea. 
    But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
      Across the sands of Dee.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

 A WISH.

“A Wish” (by Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855) and “Lucy” (by Wordsworth, 1770-1850) are two gems that can be valued only for the spirit of quiet and modesty diffused by them.

    Mine be a cot beside the hill;
      A bee-hive’s hum shall soothe my ear;
    A willowy brook that turns a mill
      With many a fall shall linger near.

    The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch
      Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
    Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
      And share my meal, a welcome guest.

    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.

S. ROGERS.

 LUCY.

    She dwelt among the untrodden ways
      Beside the springs of Dove;
    A maid whom there were none to praise,
      And very few to love.