THE ANGLER'S WISH.
I IN these flowery meads would be:
These crystal streams should solace me,
To whose harmonious, bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice –
Sit here and see the turtle-dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love.
Or on that bank, feel the west wind Breathe health and plenty; please my mind
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers;
Here hear my Kenna sing a song,
There see a blackbird feed her young,
Or a leverock build her nest;
Here give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love:
Thus, free from lawsuits, and the noise.
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice.
Or, with my Bryan and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford brook.
There sit by him, and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;
And angle on; and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still!
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doon in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why.
Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
JOHN MILTON.
STONY-BROWED Dwina, thy face is as flint!
Horsemen and wagons cross, scoring no dint;
Cossacks patrol thee, and leave thee as hard;
Camp-fires but blacken and spot thee, like pard,
For the dead, silent river lies rigid and still.
Down on thy sedgy banks picket the troops,
Scaring the night-wolves with carols and whoops;
Crackle their fagots of drift-wood and hay,
And the steam of their pots fills the nostrils of day;
But the dead, silent river lies rigid and still.
Sledges pass sliding from hamlet to town:
Lovers and comrades — and none doth he drown!
Harness-bells tinkling in musical glee,
For to none comes the sorrow that came unto me;
And the dead, silent river lies rigid and still.
I go to the Dwina; I stand on his wave,
Where Ivan, my dead, has no grass on his grave :
Stronger than granite that coffins a Czar,
Solid as pavement, and polished as spar-
Where the dead, silent river lies rigid and still.
Stronger than granite? Nay, falser than sand!
Fatal the clasp of thy slippery hand
Cruel as vulture's the clutch of thy claws;
Who shall redeem from the merciless jaws
Of the dead, silent river, so rigid and still?
Crisp lay the new-fallen snow on thy breast,
Trembled the white moon through haze in the west;
Far in the thicket the wolf-cub was howling,
Down by the sheep-cotes the wolf-dam was prowling ;
And the dead, silent river lay rigid and still:
When Ivan, my lover, my husband, my lord,
Lightly and cheerily stept on the sward
Light with his hopes of the morrow and me,
That the reeds on the margin leaned after to see;
But the dead, silent river lay rigid and still.
O'er the fresh snow-fall, the winter-long frost,
O'er the broad Dwina the forester crost:
Snares at his girdle, and gun at his side,
Game-bag weighed heavy with gifts for his bride
And the dead, silent river lay rigid and
Rigid and silent, and crouching for prey,
Crouching for him who went singing his way.
Oxen were stabled, and sheep were in fold;
But Ivan was struggling in torrents ice-cold,
'Neath the dead, silent river, so rigid and
Home he came never. We searched by the ford:
Small was the fissure that swallowed my lord;
Glassy ice-sheetings had frozen above-
A crystalline cover to seal up my love,
In the dead, silent river, so rigid and still.
Still by the Dwina my home-torches burn;
Faithful I watch for my bridegroom's return.
When the moon sparkles on hoar-frost and tree,
I see my love crossing the Dwina to me,
O'er the dead, silent river, so rigid and still.
Always approaching, he never arrives.
Howls the northeast wind, the dusty snow drives.
Snapping like touchwood, I hear the ice crack —
And my lover is drowned in the water-hole black,
'Neath the dead, silent river, so rigid and still
COUNTESS ORLOFF. (Russia
Translation of MRS. OGILVIE.
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