SONG AND LAUGHTER.

THE MINSTREL.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

To the minstrel said the king,

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Sing you mournful songs or glad?" "Nay, sire, 'tis of life I sing;

Gay to-day, to-morrow sad."

THE rain had fallen; the poet arose ;

He passed by the town and out of the street; A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,

And waves of shadow went over the wheat,

And he sat him down in a lonely place,
And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop down at his feet.

The swallow stopped as he hunted the bee,
The snake slipped under a spray,

The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey,

And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs,

But never a one so gay;

For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away."

HUNTING-SONG.

WALTER SCOTT.

WAKEN, lords and ladies gay !
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here

With hawk and horse and hunting-spear!

Hounds are in their couples yelling,

Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling.

Merrily, merrily mingle they;
Waken, lords and ladies gay!

Waken, lords and ladies gay!
The mist has left the mountain gray;

Springlets in the dawn are steaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming,