The Household Book of Poetry

To choose the longest day in all the yeare, And shortest night, when longest fitter weare;

Yet never day so long but late would passe. Ring ye the bells, to make it weare away, And bonfires make all day;

And daunce about them, and about them sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.

Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lende me leave to come unto my love? How slowly do the houres theyr numbers spend!

How slowly does sad Time his feathers move! Hast thee, O fayrest planet, to thy home, Within the westerne foame;

Thy tyred steedes long since have need of rest. Long though it be, at last I see it gloome, And the bright evening-star with golden

crest

Appeare out of the east.

Fayre child of beauty! glorious lamp of love! That all the host of heaven in rankes dost lead,

Now it is night-ye damsels may be gone,
And leave my love alone;

And leave likewise your former lay to sing: The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring.

Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected,

That long daie's labour doest at last defray,
And all my cares which cruell love collected,
Hast summd in one, and cancelled for aye!
Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
That no man may us see;

And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,
From feare of perill and foule horror free.
Let no false treason seeke us to entrap,
Nor any dread disquiet once annoy
The safety of our joy;

But let the night be calme, and quietsome,
Without tempestuous storms or sad afray:
Lyke as when Jove with fayre Alcmena lay,
When he begot the great Tirynthian groome;
Or lyke as when he with thy selfe did lye,
And begot Majesty.

And let the mayds and yongmen cease to sing And guidest lovers through the night's sad Ne let the woods them answer, nor they

Let no lamenting cryes, nor doleful teares, Be heard all night within, nor yet without; Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden feares, Breake gentle sleepe with misconceived dout. Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden, sad affrights;

Ne let house-fyres, nor lightning's helples harmes,

Ne let the pouke, nor other evill sprights,
Ne let mischievous witches with their

charmes,

Enough it is that all the day was youres.
Now day is done, and night is nighing fast;
Now bring the bryde into the brydall bowres. Ne let hob-goblins, names whose sens

EPITHALAMIUM.

I saw two clouds at morning,
Tinged by the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,

And mingled into one;

I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents

Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course with silent force,
In peace each other greeting;

Calm was their course through banks of
green,

While dimpling eddies played between.

Such be your gentle motion,

Till life's last pulse shall beat;

MY LOVE HAS TALKED.

My love has talked with rocks and trees:
He finds on misty mountain-ground
His own vast shadow glory-crowned-
He sees himself in all he sees.

Two partners of a married life,

I looked on these and thought of thee
In vastness and in mystery,

And of my spirit as of a wife.

These two, they dwelt with eye on eye;
Their hearts of old have beat in tune;
Their meetings made December June;
Their every parting was to die.

Like summer's beam, and summer's stream, Their love has never passed away;
Float on, in joy, to meet

A calmer sea, where storms shall cease

A purer sky, where all is peace.

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD.

NOT OURS THE VOWS.

NOT ours the vows of such as plight

Their troth in sunny weather,

The days she never can forget

Are earnest that he loves her yet, Whate'er the faithless people say.

Her life is lone-he sits apart

He loves her yet-she will not weer, Though, rapt in matters dark and deep He seems to slight her simple heart.

While leaves are green, and skies are bright, He thrids the labyrinth of the mind;

To walk on flowers together.

But we have loved as those who tread
The thorny path of sorrow,
With clouds above, and cause to dread
Yet deeper gloom to-morrow.
That thorny path, those stormy skies,

Have drawn our spirits nearer;
And rendered us, by sorrow's ties,

Each to the other dearer.

Love, born in hours of joy and mirth,

With mirth and joy may perish; That to which darker hours gave birth Still more and more we cherish.

It looks beyond the clouds of time,

And through death's shadowy portal; Made by adversity sublime,

By faith and hope immortal.

BERNARD BARTON.

He reads the secret of the starHe seems so near and yet so far; He looks so cold: she thinks him kind.

She keeps the gift of years before

A withered violet is her bliss;
She knows not what his greatness is;
For that, for all, she loves him more.

For him she plays, to him she sings

Of early faith and plighted vows; She knows but matters of the house; And he he knows a thousand things.

Her faith is fixed and cannot move;

She darkly feels him great and wise; She dwells on him with faithful eyes: "I cannot understand-I love."

ALFRED TENNYSON.

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