I HEARD a brooklet gushing

From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.

I know not what came o'er me,
Nor who the counsel gave;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave;
Downward, and ever farther,
And ever the brook beside;
And ever fresher murmured,
And ever clearer, the tide.

Is this the way I was going?
Whither, O brooklet, say!
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,
Murmured my senses away.

What do I say of a murmur?

That can no murmur be;

"T is the water-nymphs, that are singing Their roundelays under me.

Let them sing, my friend, 1 t them murmur, And wander merrily near;

The wheels of a mill are going

In every brooklet clear.

SONG OF THE BELL

FROM THE GERMAN.

BELL! thou soundest merrily, When the bridal party

To the church doth hie! Bell! thou soundest solemnly, When, on Sabbath morning, Fields deserted lie!

Bell! thou soundest merrily;
Tellest thou at evening,
Bed-time draweth nigh!
Bell! thou soundest mournfully,
Tellest thou the bitter

Parting hath gone by!

Say! how canst thou mourn? How canst thou rejoice?

Thou art but metal dull! And yet all our sorrowings, And all our rejoicings,

Thou dost feel them all!

God hath wonders many, Which we cannot fathom,

Placed within thy form! When the heart is sinking, Thou alone canst raise it, Trembling in the storm!

Danced in sable iron sark,
Danced a measure weird and dark,
Coldly clasped her limbs around;
From breast and hair
Down fall from her the fair

Flowerets, faded, to the ground.

To the sumptuous banquet came
Every Knight and every Dame;

"Twixt son and daughter all distraught, With mournful mind

The ancient King reclined,

Gazed at them in silent thought.

Pale the children both did look,
But the guest a beaker took :

"Golden wine will make you whole!" The children drank,

Gave many a courteous thank :

"O, that draught was very cool!"

O Land!

For all the broken-hearted

The mildest herald by our fate allotted, Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us with a gentle hand

To the land of the great Departed,

Into the Silent Land!

L'ENVOI

YE voices, that arose

After the Evening's close,

And whispered to my restless heart repose!

Go, breathe it in the ear

Of all who doubt and fear,

And say to them, "Be of good cheer!"

Ye sounds, so low and calm,

That in the groves of balm

Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!

Go, mingle yet once more
With the perpetual roar

Of the pine forest, dark and hoar!

Tongues of the dead, not lost, But speaking from death's frost, Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!

Glimmer, as funeral lamps,
Amid the chills and damps

Of the vast plain where Death encamps!

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

IT was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn huds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,

"I

Had sailed to the Spanish Main, pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see !

The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,

A gale from the Northeast,

The snow fell hissing in the brine,

And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,

And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale

That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring, O say, what may it be?"

""T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns, O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,

O say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the Reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful grsts between

A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,

She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.