A Wish.

"A Wish" (by Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855) and "Lucy" (by Words. worth, 1770-1850) are two gems that can be valued only for the spirit of quiet and modesty diffused by them.

MINE be a cot beside the hill;

A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns a mill
With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,

And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring

Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.

The village church among the trees,

Where first our marriage-vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze
And point with taper spire to Heaven.
S. ROGERS.

Lucy.

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove;

A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

HAPPY the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with

bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixt, sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

ALEXANDER POPE.

John Anderson.

"John Anderson," by Robert Burns (1759-96). This poem is included to please several teachers.

JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is bald, John,
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither;
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

ROBERT BURNS.

The God of Music.

"The God of Music," by Edith M. Thomas, an Ohio poetess now iving. In this sonnet the poetess has touched the power of Wordsworth or Keats and placed herself among the immortals.

THE God of Music dwelleth out of doors.
All seasons through his minstrelsy we meet,
Breathing by field and covert haunting-sweet
From organ-lofts in forests old he pours:
A solemn harmony: on leafy floors

To smooth autumnal pipes he moves his feet,
Or with the tingling plectrum of the sleet
In winter keen beats out his thrilling scores.
Leave me the reed unplucked beside the stream,
And he will stoop and fill it with the breeze;
Leave me the viol's frame in secret trees,
Unwrought, and it shall wake a druid theme;
Leave me the whispering shell on Nereid shores.
The God of Music dwelleth out of doors.
EDITH M. THOMAS.

A Musical Instrument.

"A Musical Instrument" (by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61). This poem is the supreme masterpiece of Mrs. Browning. The prime thought in it is the sacrifice and pain that must go to make a poet or any genius.

"The great god sighed for the cost and the pain."

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat

With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flow'd the river;

And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed

To prove

it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan

(How tall it stood in the river !),

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,

And notch'd the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river.

"This is the way," laugh'd the great god Pan (Laugh'd while he sat by the river),

"The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed."
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed
He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies reviv'd, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.