When I was young? ah! woeful when ;
Ah! for the change 'twixt now and then ;
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along :

Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,

That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather When youth and I lived in 't together.

Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,

Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah woeful ere!
Which tells me, youth's no longer here.
O youth for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known, that thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled:
And thou wert aye a masker bold !
What strange disguise hast now put on,

To make believe, that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size :
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That youth and I are house-mates still.

CXLIX.

A

GLYCINE'S SONG.

SUNNY shaft did I behold,

From sky to earth it slanted;
And poised therein a bird so bold-
Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!

He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled
Within that shaft of sunny mist;
His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,

All else of amethyst !

And thus he sang:

'Adieu! adieu !

Love's dreams prove seldom true.

The blossoms they

Make no delay;

The sparkling dewdrops will not stay.

Sweet month of May,

We must away;

Far, far away!

To-day! to-day!'

CL.

ROBERT SOUTHEY,

1774-1843.

THE HOLLY TREE.

READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves

Ordered by an intelligence so wise,

As might confound the atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,

And moralize :

And in this wisdom of the holly tree

Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,

One which may profit in the after time.

Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear

Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude

Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be

Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,

Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.

And as when all the summer trees are seen

So bright and green,

The holly leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the holly tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay

More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be

As the green winter of the holly tree.