SONG. THE OWL.

WHEN cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,

And the far-off stream is dumb,

And the whirring sail goes round,

And the whirring sail goes round;

Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry

milkmaids click the latch,

And rarely smells the new-mown hay,

And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch

Twice or thrice his roundelay,

Twice or thrice his roundelay:

Alone and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits.

SECOND SONG.

TO THE SAME.

THY tuwhits are lull'd I wot,

Thy tuwhoos of yesternight, Which upon the dark afloat,

So took echo with delight,

So took echo with delight,

That her voice untuneful grown,

Wears all day a fainter tone.

I would mock thy chaunt anew;
But I cannot mimick it;

Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,

Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,

Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,

With a lengthen❜d loud halloo,

Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

1.

WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free

In the silken sail of infancy,

The tide of time flow'd back with me,

The forward-flowing tide of time;

And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

II.

Anight my shallop, rustling thro'

The low and bloomed foliage, drove

The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue:

By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim,
And broider'd sofas on each side:
In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

III.

Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard

The outlet, did I turn away

The boat-head down a broad canal

From the main river sluiced, where all

The sloping of the moon-lit sward

Was damask-work, and deep inlay

23

Of braided blooms unmown, which crept

Adown to where the waters slept.
A goodly place, a goodly time,

For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

IV.

A motion from the river won

Ridged the smooth level, bearing on

My shallop through the star-strown calm,
Until another night in night

I enter'd, from the clearer light,
Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm,

Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb
Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome
Of hollow boughs.-A goodly time,

For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Still onward; and the clear canal

Is rounded to as clear a lake.