A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

Comes he not forth more fresh and bright
From ocean's cooling caves?
Canst thou unmoved that deep world see,
That heaven of tranquil blue,

Where thine own face is beckoning thee
Down to the eternal dew?

The waters purled, the waters swelled,
They kissed his naked feet;

His heart a nameless transport held,
As if his love did greet.

She spake to him, she sang to him;

Then all with him was o'er,

"But then there's their barley: how much will they need?

Why, they take but one grain at a time when
they feed,

Half drew she him, half sank he in,
He sank to rise no more.
GOETHE. Translation of CHARLES T. BROOKS. So that's a mere trifle; now then, let us see,
At a fair market price how much money there'll be.
"Six shillings a pair-five-four-three-and-six,
To prevent all mistakes, that low price I will fix;
Now what will that make? fifty chickens, I said,-
Fifty times three-and-sixpence - I'll ask Brother
Ned.

THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM.

A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long
Had cheered the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel as well he might -
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied, far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark;
So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, quite eloquent,

"Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,
"As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 't was the self-same Power divine
Taught you to sing, and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night."
The songster heard his short oration,
And, warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.

Forgetting her burden, when this she had said,
The maid superciliously tossed up her head;
When, alas for her prospects! her milk-pail
descended,

And so all her schemes for the future were ended.

[It is said that Belzoni, the traveller in Egypt, discovered a living toad in a temple which had been for ages buried in the sand.]

IN a land for antiquities greatly renowned
A traveller had dug wide and deep under ground,

A temple for ages entombed, to disclose, —
When, lo! he disturbed, in its secret repose,
A toad, from whose journal it plainly appears
It had lodged in that mansion some thousands of

years.

The roll which this reptile's long history records, A treat to the sage antiquarian affords:

The sense by obscure hieroglyphics concealed,
Deep learning at length, with long labor, revealed.
The first thousand years as a specimen take, -
The dates are omitted for brevity's sake:
"Crawled forth from some rubbish, and winked
with one eye;

Half opened the other, but could not tell why;
Stretched out my left leg, as it felt rather queer,
Then drew all together and slept for a year.
Awakened, felt chilly, - crept under a stone;
Was vastly contented with living alone.
One toe became wedged in the stone like a peg,
Could not get it away, had the cramp in my leg;
Began half to wish for a neighbor at hand

To loosen the stone, which was fast in the sand; Pulled harder, then dozed, as I found 't was no

use;

Awoke the next summer, and lo! it was loose. Crawled forth from the stone when completely awake;

Crept into a corner and grinned at a snake.
Retreated, and found that I needed repose;
Curled up my damp limbs and prepared for a doze;
Fell sounder to sleep than was usual before,
And did not awake for a century or more;
But had a sweet dream, as I rather believe :
Methought it was light, and a fine summer's eve;
And I in some garden deliciously fed

In the pleasant moist shade of a strawberry-bed.
There fine speckled creatures claimed kindred with

The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould, Lying loose on a ponderous stone.

Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne,

A toad has been sitting more years than is
nis known;
And strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems
The world standing still while he's dreaming

his dreams,

Does this wonderful toad, in his cheerful abode In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in the hollow, from morning till night, Dun shadows glide over the ground, Where a watercourse once, as it sparkled with light,

Turned a ruined old mill-wheel around: Long years have passed by since its bed became dry,

And the trees grow so close, scarce a glimpse

of the sky

Is seen in the hollow, so dark and so damp, Where the glow-worm at noonday is trimming

his lamp,

And hardly a sound from the thicket around, Where the rabbit and squirrel leap over the

ground,

Is heard by the toad in his spacious abode In the innermost heart of that ponderous stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in that hollow the bees never

come,

The shade is too black for a flower; And jewel-winged birds, with their musical hum, Never flash in the night of that bower; But the cold-blooded snake, in the edge of the brake,

Lies amid the rank grass half asleep, halfawake; And the ashen-white snail, with the slime in

its trail,

Moves wearily on like a life's tedious tale, Yet disturbs not the toad in his spacious abode, In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in a hollow some wiseacres sit Like the toad in his cell in the stone; Around them in daylight the blind owlets flit, And their creeds are with ivy o'ergrown ;Their streams may go dry, and the wheels cease to ply,

And their glimpses be few of the sun and the sky, Still they hug to their breast every time-hon

ored guest,

And slumber and doze in inglorious rest; For no progress they find in the wide sphere of mind,

And the world's standing still with all of their | Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce.

kind;

Contented to dwell deep down in the well,

Or move like the snail in the crust of his shell, Or live like the toad in his narrow abode, With their souls closely wedged in a thick wall of stone,

By further experiments (no matter how)
He found that ten chariots weighed less than
one plough;

By the gray weeds of prejudice rankly o'ergrown. A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale,

MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.

A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depth of his cell with his stone-covered floor,
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,
Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain;
But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers
We know not; indeed, 't is no business of ours.

Perhaps it was only by patience and care,
At last, that he brought his invention to bear.

Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail;
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.

Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;
A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt,
Than one good potato just washed from the dirt;
Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice

One pearl to outweigh, —'t was THE PEARL OF

GREAT PRICE.

In youth 't was projected, but years stole away,
And ere 't was complete he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure, unless energy fails;
And at length he produced THE PHILOSOPHER'S Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the

SCALES.

grate,

"What were they?" you ask. You shall pres- With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight, When the former sprang up with so strong a re

ently see;

These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea.
O no; for such properties wondrous had they,
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could
weigh,

Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets to atoms of sense.

Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay,
And naught so ethereal but there it would stay,
And naught so reluctant but in it must go :
All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there.
As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.

buff

Then, from the corner of the room,

One time he put in Alexander the Great,
With the garment that Dorcas had made for a A voice cut sharply through the gloom:

weight;

And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

A long row of almshouses, amply endowed
By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Next loaded one scale; while the other was pressed
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the
chest:

"My name is Satan. Rise! obey
Mohammed's law; awake, and pray."

"Thy words are good," the Caliph said,
"But their intent I somewhat dread.

For matters cannot well be worse

Than when the thief says, 'Guard your purse!'

For how can I thy words believe, When even God thou didst deceive?

A sea of lies art thou, our sin
Only a drop that sea within."

"Not so," said Satan, "I serve God,
His angel now, and now his rod.

In tempting I both bless and curse,
Make good men better, bad men worse.

Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother,
I but distinguish one from the other."
"Granted," the Caliph said, "but still
You never tempt to good, but ill.

Tell then the truth, for well I know
You come as my most deadly foe."

Loud laughed the fiend. "You know me well,
Therefore my purpose I will tell.

If you had missed your prayer, I knew
A swift repentance would ensue.

And such repentance would have been

A good, outweighing far the sin.

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OUR revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

SHAKESPEARE.

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