My Nannie's Awa'

Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays,
An' listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes,
While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw;
But to me it's delightless-my Nannie's awa'.

The snaw-drap an' primrose our woodlands adorn,
An' violets bathe in the weet o' the morn;
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
They mind me o' Nannie-an' Nannie's awa'.

Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the
lawn,

The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn,
An' thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa',
Give over for pity-my Nannie's awa'.

Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow an' gray,
An' soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay;
The dark, dreary winter, an' wild-driving snaw,
Alane can delight me-now Nannie's awa'.

ROBERT BURNS.

A Garden

of Girls

The World of Waters

The sea has the sun for a harper." She has also among her myriad worshippers Swinburne, the poet-harpist, who sweeps all the strings of his noble instrument in her praise.

There can be no worthier introduction to a group of sea-poems than lines “all gold seven times refined," selected almost at random from a great poet whom you will be glad to read later on.

"Green earth has her sons and her daughters,

And these have their guerdons; but we
Are the wind's and the sun's and the water's,
Elect of the sea."

"She is pure as the wind and the sun,

And her sweetness endureth forever."

"For the wind, with his wings half open, at pause
in the sky, neither fettered nor free,

Leans waveward and flutters the ripple to laughter!"

"But for hours upon hours

As a thrall she remains

Spell-bound as with flowers

And content in their chains,

And her loud steeds fret not, and lift not a lock
of their deep white manes."

"And all the rippling green grew royal gold
Between him and the far sun's rising rim.”

"Where the horn of the headland is sharper
And her green floor glitters with fire,
The sea has the sun for a harper,
The sun has the sea for a lyre."

"The waves are a pavement of amber,
By the feet of the sea-winds trod,
To receive in a god's presence-chamber
Our father, the God."

IX

THE WORLD OF WATERS

To the Ocean

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd and un-
known.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he
wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth—there let him

lay.