The dog is not of mountain-breed ;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry;

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow, or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle, strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps till June December's snow; A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn* below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.
Not free from boding thoughts, awhile
The shepherd stood; then makes his
way
Towards the dog, o'er rocks and stones,
As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground.
The appall'd discoverer, with a sigh,
Looks round to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fall'n, that place of fear!
At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks and all is clear:

He instantly recall'd the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remember'd, too, the very day

On which the traveller pass'd this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.

The dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,

This dog had been, through three months' space,

A dweller in that savage place!

* Tarn, a small mountain lake, or pool.

Yes, proof was plain, that since the day
When this ill-fated traveller died,
The dog had watch'd about the spot,
Or by his master's side:

How nourish'd here through such long time,
He knows who gave that love sublime,
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate!

Wordsworth.

CASABIANCA.*

THE boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck,
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;

A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child-like form.

The flames roll'd on - he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He call'd aloud:-" Say, Father, say
If yet my task is done?

He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

* Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the Admiral of the French fleet, remained at his post, in the Battle of the Nile, after his ship, the "Orient," had caught fire, and after all the guns had been abandoned. He perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder magazine.-Vide "Battle of the Nile," p. 298.

"Speak, Father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"

And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll'd on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,

And look'd from that lone post of death,
In still, yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
"My Father! must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendor wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream'd above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part!

But the noblest thing which perished there

Was that young faithful heart.

Mrs. Hemans.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

Ir was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter,

To bear him company.

•“But,” nothing but (except); only.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

Down came the storm, and smote amain,
The vessel in its strength;

She shudder'd and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my

And do not tremble so,

little daughter,

For I can weather the roughest gale,
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

"O father! I hear the church bells ring, what may it be?"

O say,

""Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!". And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,

O say, what inay it be?"

Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,

say, what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word,

A frozen corpse was he.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,

Through the whistling sleet and snow,

Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept

Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

To the rocks and breakers right ahead
She drifted, a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

At daybreak on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,

On the billows fall and rise.

Longfellow

AN INDIAN'S GRATITUDE.
Now had the autumn day gone by,
And evening's yellow shade
Had wrapt the mountains and the hills,
And lengthened o'er the glade.
The honey-bee had sought her hive,
The bird her sheltered nest,
And in the hollow valley's gloom

Both wind and wave had rest.

And to a cottar's hut that eve
There came an Indian chief;
And in his frame was weariness,
And in his face was grief.
The feather o'er his head that danced
Was weather-soiled and rent,

And broken were his bow and spear,

And all his arrows spent.