Retreating, and beating, and meeting, and sheeting,
Delaying, and straying, and playing, and spraying,
Advancing, and prancing, and glancing, and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling, and boiling,
And gleaming, and streaming, and steaming, and
beaming,

And rushing, and flushing, and brushing, and gushing,

And flapping, and rapping, and clapping, and slapping,

And curling, and whirling, and purling, and twirling, And thumping, and plumping, and bumping, and

jumping,

And dashing, and flashing, and splashing, and clashing,

And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending, All at once, and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

SOUTHEY.

The Bugle Song.

THE splendour falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story,
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying ;

Blow, bugle-answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Oh, hark! oh, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going;
Oh! sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing.
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle-answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Oh, love, they die in yon rich sky!
They faint on hill, on field, on river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

The Pounder1.

THE Christians have beleaguer'd the famous walls of Xeres:

Among them are Don Alvar, and Don Diego Perez,

1 Mr. Lockhart, in his note to this ballad, informs us that it relates to a doughty knight of the family, and most probably a brother, of the renowned Garcia Perez de Vargas, whose story is thus alluded to by Don Quixote in the Chapter of the Windmills:-"I tell this, because I intend to tear up the next oak or holm-tree we meet; with the trunk whereof I hope to perform such deeds, that thou wilt esteem thyself happy in having had the honour to behold them, and been the ocular witness of achievements which posterity will scarce be able to believe." "Heaven grant you may!" cried Sancho. "I believe it all, because your worship says it."

And many other gentlemen, who, day succeeding day, Give challenge to the Saracen and all his chivalry.

When rages the hot battle before the gates of Xeres,

By trace of gore ye may explore the dauntless path of Perez:

No knight like Don Diego-no sword like his is

found

In all the host, to hew the boast of Paynims to the ground.

It fell one day when furiously they battled on the

plain,

Diego shiver'd both his lance and trusty blade in

twain:

The Moors that saw it shouted, for esquire none

was near

To serve Diego at his need with falchion, mace, or

spear.

Loud, loud he blew his bugle, sore troubled was

his eye,

But by God's grace, before his face there stood a tree full nigh

An olive-tree, with branches strong, close by the wall of Xeres:

"Yon goodly bough will serve, I trow," quoth Don Diego Perez.

A gnarled branch he soon did wrench down from that olive strong,

Which o'er his head-piece brandishing, he spurs among the throng:

God wot! full many a pagan must in his saddle

reel:

What leech may cure, what beadsman shrive, if once that weight ye feel?

But when Don Alvar saw him thus bruising down the foe,

Quoth he, "I've seen some flail-arm'd man belabour barley so:

Sure mortal mould did ne'er enfold such mastery of

power

Let's call Diego Perez the Pounder from this

hour."

LOCKHART.

The Wood.

WHENCE is the secret charm of this lone wood,
Which in the light of evening mildly sleeps ?
I tread with lingering feet the quiet steeps,
Where thwarted oaks o'er their own old age brood;
And where the gentler trees in summer weather
Spring up all greenly in their youth together:
And the grass is dwelling in a silent mood,
And the fir-like fern its under-forest keeps
In a strange stillness. My wing'd spirit sweeps
Forth as it hath been wont; nor stays with me,
Like some domestic thing that loves its home.
It goes a-dreaming o'er the imagery
Of other scenes, which from afar do come,
Watching them with this indolent solitude.

Here; I am dwelling in the days gone by-
And under trees which I have known before:
My heart with feelings old is running o'er
And I am thrill'd-thrill'd at an evening sky
The present seems a mockery of the past,
And all my thoughts glide by me, like a stream
That seeks a home,-that shines beneath the beam
Of the summer sun,-and wanders through sweet
meads,

In which the joyous wildflower meekly feeds,-
And strays, and wastes away in woods at last.
My thoughts o'er many things glance silently;
But to this olden forest creep, and cling fast.
Imagination, ever wild and free,

With heart as open as the naked sea,
Can consecrate whate'er it looks upon :
And memory, that maiden never alone,
Cons o'er the tale of life. While I can see

This blue, deep sky-that sun so proudly setting
In the haughty west-that spring patiently wet-

ting

The shadowy dell-these trees so tall and fair,
That have no visitors but the birds and air;
And hear those leaves a gentle murmur keep,
Like brooks that make soft music in their sleep;
The melting of young waters in the dells,
The jingle of the loose flock's lulling bells;
While these all mingling o'er my senses sweep,
I need not doubt but I shall ever find

Things, that will feed the cravings of my mind.
My happiest hours were pass'd with those I love
On steeps; in dells with shadowy trees above;