With childish reverence, my young lips did say
The prayer my pious mother taught to me:
"O, gentle God! O, let me strive alway
Still to be wise and good, and follow thee !"

So prayed I for my father and my mother,
And for my sister, and for all the town;
The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,
Who, bent with age, went sighing up and down.

They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,
And all the gladness, all the peace I knew!
Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished;-
God! may I never, never lose that too!
From the Danish of Baggesen.

LONGFELLOW.

117. DEPARTED DAYS.

Joys of my early hours!

The swallows on the wing,
The bees among the flowers,

The butterflies of Spring,

Light as their lively moments flew,

Were not more gay, more innocent, than you :
And fugitive as they,

Like butterflies in spring,

Like bees among the flowers,

Like swallows on the wing,

How swift, how soon, ye pass'd away,

Joys of my early hours!

MONTO

RY.

FOREIGN LANDS AND OUR DEAR ENGLISH HOME. 133

118. FOREIGN LANDS AND OUR DEAR ENGLISH HOME.

THE orange sheds its sweet perfume
Beneath Hispania's skies;

But we've the apple's ruddy bloom,
The orchard's rich supplies!

The cocoa and the date-tree spread
Their boughs in India's clime;
The yellow mango hangs o'erhead,
And stately grows the lime;

But we've the cherry's tempting bough,
The currant's coral gem;

What English child will not allow
That these may vie with them?

Italy boasts its citron groves,

And walks of lemon trees; Ceylon, its spicy nuts and cloves, That scent the summer breeze;

But we've the peach, and nectarine red,
The ripe and blooming plum,
The strawberry in its leafy bed,
When holidays are come.

The purple vine its harvest yields,
France, in thy fertile plain;
But we've the yellow waving fields
Of golden British grain.

N

134 FOREIGN LANDS AND OUR DEAR ENGLISH HOME.

Still let us love this spot of earth-
The best where'er we roam,
And duly estimate the worth
Of our dear English home.

MRS. C. B. WILSON.

119. THE PARISH SCHOOLMASTER. BESIDE yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school: A man severe he was, and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning's face; Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd: Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declared how much he knew, 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could guage: In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill, For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still; While words of learned length, and thundering sound, Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head should carry all he knew. But past is all his fame. The very spot, Where many a time he triumph'd, is forgot.

GOLDSMITH.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

135

120. 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.

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.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
With his pipe in his mouth,

And watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish main,
"I pray thee put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"

The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the North-east;
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain

The vessel in its strength:

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

136

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr, And do not tremble so;

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;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,

And bound her to the mast.

"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 may 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.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,

With his face to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be ;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the waves On the Lake of Galilee.