"Oh, but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, fcr every drop
Hinders needle and thread."

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A Woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread-
Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch-
Would that its tone could reach the Rich!
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

DEAR IS MY LITTLE NATIVE VALE.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

DEAR is my little native vale,

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there,

Close by my cot she tells her tale,
To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange-groves and myrtle bowers,

That breathe a gale of fragrance round,

I charm the fairy-footed hours,

With my loved lute's romantic sound; Or crowns of living laurel weave, For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,

The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay,

Sung in the silent green-wood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

MELANCHOLY.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Go! you may call it madness, folly;
You shall not chase my gloom away.
There's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not, if I could, be gay.

Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure
That fills my bosom when I sigh,
You would not rob me of a treasure
Monarchs are too poor to buy.

THE TAMBOURINE SONG.

CHARLES MACKAY.

I LOVE my little native isle,

Mine emerald in a golden deep; My garden where the roses smile,

My vineyard where the tendrils creep.

How sweetly glide the summer hours,

When twilight shows her silver sheen ; And youths and maids from all the bowers Come forth to play the Tambourine!

At morn the fisher spreads his sail
Upon our calm encircling sea;

The farmer labours in the vale,

Or tends his vine and orange tree.

But soon as lingering sunset throws

O'er woods and fields a deeper green, And all the west in crimson glows,

They gather to the Tambourine.

We love our merry native song,

Our moss-grown seats in lonely nooks,

Our moonlight walks the beach along,
For interchange of words and looks.
When toil is done, and day is spent,

Sweet is the dance with song between ;
The jest for harmless pleasure meant,
And tinkle of the Tambourine.

My native isle, my land of peace-
My father's home, my mother's grave—
May evermore thy joys increase,

And plenty o'er thy corn-fields wave!
May storms ne'er vex thine ocean surf,
Nor war pollute thy valleys green;

Nor fail the dance upon thy turf,
Nor music of the Tambourine.

THAT SONG, AGAIN!

THOMAS K. HERVEY.

THAT Song, again! its wailing strain

Brings back the thoughts of other hours,

The forms I ne'er may see again,—

And brightens all life's faded flowers!

In mournful murmurs, o'er mine ear
Remembered echoes seem to roll,
And sounds I never more can hear,
Make music in my lonely soul!

That swell again !-now full and high,
The tide of feeling flows along,
And many a thought that claims a sigh,
Seems mingling with the magic song!

The forms I loved-and loved in vain,

The hopes I nursed-to see them die,
With fleetness, brightness, through my brain,
In phantom beauty, wander by!

Then touch the lyre, my own dear love!
My soul is like a troubled sea,

And turns from all below-above,

In fondness, to the harp and thee!

BE STILL, BE STILL, POOR HUMAN HEART.
ELEANORA L. MONTAGU (MRS. T. K. HERVEY).

BE still,-be still, poor human Heart,
What fitful fever shakes thee now?
The Earth's most lovely things depart-
And what art thou?

Thy spring than earth's doth sooner fade,
Thy blossoms first with poison fill;
To sorrow born-for suffering made-
Poor Heart! be still.

Thou lookest to the clouds,-they fleet;
Thou turnest to the waves,-they falter;

The flower that decks the shrine, though sweet,
Dies on its altar:

And thou, more changeful than the cloud,
More restless than the wandering rill,
Like that lone flower in silence bowed.
Poor Heart! be still.

THE OLD MAN'S SONG OF THE OLD YEAR'S DYING.
ELEANORA L. HERVEY.

To sleep, to sleep!-'tis the old year's dying,
Let me sleep till he be dead;
Comfort and Hope and Time are flying-
Gladness and Youth are fled.

Year after year has been ushered in,
So many are lost there are few to win-
But enough for sorrow and toil and sin:-

Let me sleep while the old year dies!

I like not the passing away from earth
Of the thing we have watched so long;
I cannot welcome the new year's birth

With the old year's dying song!
Wake me at morn when the dust is flung
On the ancient head that so late was young:
If rest may be where the soul is wrung,

Let me sleep while the old year dies!

Rivers of tears have flowed to him

Strong tides of the soul's despair;

Many a passionate prayer and hymn

Been poured on his midnight air.

Why have we wished that his days were o'er,
When the life that goes with him returns no more?

I shall miss his weary step on the floor:

Let me sleep while the old year dies!

Wild pulses are playing in many a heart

With the hopes of the dawn to come;
For they know not yet of the nights that part
What the morrow shall never bring home.
Their new year friend as the old they greet;
But mine are the memories sad,-though sweet,—
That pass the new guest in life's crowded street :-
Let me sleep while the old year dies!

My heart is bowed, and my eyes are dim,
And take not the light they gave:
Then, call me not up to make merry with him
Who treads on an old man's grave!
In the morning light of the life-long year
The outer mists themselves look clear;
But I to the SHADOW am all too near,-

Let me sleep while the old year dies!
In the cave of the earth, down fathoms below
The greenness whereon we stand,
'Tis said that a central fire doth glow-
A sealess and burning land:

If deep in the heart such fires abide,

And the vallies stretch and the currents glide,
That see no greenness and feel no tide,

Then-sleep while the old year dies!
Perchance, while gleams of the future's light
On his forehead the new year wears,
Ye may not care how the long dread night
Falls down on the old grey hairs:

But the veil of the grave-clouds gathers near,
And the long death-silence lies close to mine ear.
Oh! I have no joy in the coming year,-

Let me sleep while the old year dies!

THE FOUNDING OF THE BELL. CHARLES MACKAY. From "Legends of the Isles," 1845

I.

HARK! how the furnace pants and roars,
Hark! how the molten metal pours,

As, bursting from its iron doors,

It glitters in the sun.