Carried the Lady's voice, old Skiddaw blew

His speaking-trumpet; back out of

the clouds

Of Glaramara southward came the voice;

And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.

"Now whether" (said I to our cordial friend,

Who in the hey-day of astonishment Smiled in my face), "this were in simple truth A work accomplished by the brotherhood

Of ancient mountains, or my ear was touched With dreams and visionary impulses To me alone imparted, sure I am That there was a loud uproar in the hills."

And while we both were listening, to my side

The fair Joanna drew, as if she wished

To shelter from some object of her fear.

And hence long afterwards, when eighteen moons

Were wasted, as I chanced to walk alone Beneath this rock, at sunrise, on a calm

And silent morning, I sat down, and there,

In memory of affections old and true, I chiselled out in those rude characters

Joanna's name deep in the living

stone;

And I and all who dwell by my fireside Have called the lovely rock, Joanna's Rock."

WORDSWORTII.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred, How little you bestead,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,

yore,
To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cyprus-lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the
skies,

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast:
And join with thee calm Peace, and
Quiet,

Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,

And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing:
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleas-
ure;

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,

Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon
yoke,

Gently o'er th' accustomed oak; Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among

I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless
way;

And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the

Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream

Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid.
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a din religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, th ugh mine

ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.

And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heav'n doth show,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures Melancholy give,
And I with thee will choose to live.
MILTON.

FROM THE BOTHIE OF TOBER NA VUOLICH.

THERE is a stream, I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books, Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains,

Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped Then for four more in a forest of

pine, where broad and ample Spreads, to convey it, the glen with

heathery slopes on both sides: Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows; But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,