The Songs of Our Fathers.

Sing aloud
Old songs, the precious music of the heart."

ING them upon the sunny hills, When days are long and bright, And the blue gleam of shining rills

SING

Is loveliest to the sight.

Sing them along the misty moor,

Where ancient hunters roved;

And swell them through the torrent's roar— The songs our fathers loved.

The songs their souls rejoiced to hear,
When harps were in the hall,

And each proud note made lance and spear
Thrill on the bannered wall;

The songs that through our valleys green,

Sent on from age to age,

Like his own river's voice, have been
The peasant's heritage.

The reaper sings them when the vale
Is filled with plumy sheaves;
The woodman, by the starlight pale

Cheered homeward through the leaves:
And unto them the glancing oars

A joyous measure keep,

Where the dark rocks that crest our shores Dash back the foaming deep.

So let it be! —a light they shed
O'er each old fount and grove,
A memory of the gentle dead,
A lingering spell of love.

THE DAY IS DONE.

Murmuring the names of mighty men,
They bid our streams roll on ;
And link high thoughts to every glen
Where valiant deeds were done.

Teach them your children round the hearth,
When evening fires burn clear,

And in the fields of harvest mirth,

And on the hills of deer:

So shall each unforgotten word,

When far those loved ones roam,
Call back the heart which once it stirred
To childhood's holy home.

The green woods of their native land
Shall whisper in the strain;
The voices of their household band
Shall sweetly speak again;
The heathery heights in vision rise,
Where like the stag they roved ;—
Sing to your sons those melodies,
The songs your fathers loved.

MRS. FELICIA HEMANS.

The Day is Done.

THE

HE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wing of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist; And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist ;

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A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come,read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of time.

For, like strains of martial music,

Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor;

And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice;

And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

THE SPLENDOR FALLS.

And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

The Splendor Falls.

THE

`HE splendor falls on castle walls, And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going; O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love! they die on yon rich sky;

They faint on hill, or field, or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying;
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

WHE

Song of the Stars.

HEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death

Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,

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And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame,
From the void abyss by myriads came,—
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voice in chorus rang,

And this was the song the bright ones sang :

Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, The fair, blue fields that before us lie,—

Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll,

Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink as we go the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo! yonder the living splendors play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,

In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!

How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass !

And the path of the gentle winds is seen,

Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

“And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets, and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

“Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,