I read it, my letter, my letter; then softly in fragments small To what I have loved so long and well, the flashing, dancing wave, I tore the precious pages, and stopped to kiss To the mighty arms of the great North sea, them all; the thing I prized I gave; They were safe and sure, the golden words, It should die, my letter, my letter, no common mortal death, rewritten in my heart, It were surely best, in a world of change, It should be rocked upon the ocean's breast, with their earthly shrine to part; lulled by the ocean's breath. So I tore it, my letter, my letter, with a smile, Has a monarch kinglier requiem, a chief a and with a sigh, nobler shrine, And tossed them to the sunny sea, beneath Than that I gave my letter from that rocky the sunny sky. nest of mine? ANONYMOUS. THE LAND OF LOVE. (From A Tour Round My Garden.") 'HERE are times when the flowers languish with heat; there are times when one only hears among the parched herbs the monotonous cry of the grasshopper, when one sees nothing stirring abroad but the lizards. The nights are cool, sweet, and fragrant; the flowering trees are filled with nightingales, exhaling perfumes and celestial melody; and the grass is brilliant with the glow-worms gliding about with their violet flames. You will in this manner describe to me some far off country; I will thus delineate what my garden affords. The seasons, as they pass away, are climates which travel around the globe, and come to seek me. Your long voyages are nothing but fatiguing visits, which you go to pay to the seasons which would themselves have come to you. But there is still another land, a delightful country, which would in vain be sought for on the waves of the sea, or across the lofty mountains. In that country the flowers not only exhale sweet perfumes, but intoxicating thoughts of love. There every tree, every plant breathes, in a language more noble than poetry, and more sweet than music, things of which no human tongue can give an idea. The sand of the roads is gold and precious stones, the air is filled with songs, compared to which those of the nightingales and thrushes which I now listen to, are no better than the croak of frogs in their reedy marshes. Man in that land is good, great, noble, and generous. There all things are the reverse of those which we see every day; all the treasures of the earth, all dignities crowded together, would be but objects of ridicule if offered there in exchange for a faded flower or an old glove, left in a honeysuckle arbor. But why do I talk about honeysuckles? Why, I am forced to give the names of flowers you know to those charming regions. In this country no one believes in the existence of perfidy, unconstancy, old age, death, or forgetfulness, which is the death of the heart. Man there requires neither sleep nor food; an old wooden bench is there a thousand times more soft than eider-down elsewhere; slumbers are there more calm and delicious, constantly attended by blissful dreams. The sour sloe of the hedges, the insipid fruit of the bramble, there acquire a flavor so delicious that it would be absurd to compare them to the pine-apple of other regions. Life is there more mildly happy than dreams can aspire to be in other countries. Go, then, and seek these poetic isles! Alas! In reality it was but a poor little garden, in a mean suburb, when I was eighteen, and in love, and when she would steal thither for an instant at sunset! JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE KARR. 1 Then glory, my Jeanie, maun plead my ex- And if I should luck to come gloriously hame, cuse; I'll bring a heart to thee with love running o'er, Since honour commands me, how can I refuse? And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more. ALLAN RAMSAY. |