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WITH THE STREAM.

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RIFTING along the river, all gleaming

With sun-jewels, that sparkled and played on its breast,

Down thro' the golden-cupped lillies, and dream

ing

Of love, as they floated on into the West;
On past the banks, where the tall grasses, waving
Kist the cool stream as they bended them low;
No sound to be heard in the deep stillness, saving
The water's monotonous, musical flow;

Past where the swan mid the sedges was sleeping,
Her head 'neath her feathers, unruffled and white,
And where thro' the brushwood the rabbit was peeping,
As if make to sure there was no one in sight;

Past where the deep blue forget-me-nots flooded

The space where they bloomed with a heavenly glow, Where daffodils stoopt from the banks which they studded,

Reflecting themselves in the water below.

Unconscious the two in the boat as it drifted

Of everything round them, and silent was each; For the youth, as he gazed in the sweet eyes uplifted, Discoursed in a language unfettered by speech!

RAIN ON THE ROOF.

COATES KINNEY.

W

HEN the humid shadows hover over all the starry spheres,

And the melancholy darkness gently weeps in

rainy tears,

What a bliss to press the pillow of a cottagechamber bed,

And to listen to the patter of the soft rain overhead!

Every tinkle on the shingles has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies into busy being start,
And a thousand recollections weave their air-threads into woof,
As I listen to the patter of the rain upon the roof.

Now in memory comes my mother, as she used, in years

agone,

To regard the darling dreamers ere she left them till the dawn:

So I see her leaning o'er me, as I list to this refrain
Which is played upon the shingles by the patter of the rain.

Then my little seraph sister, with the wings and waving hair, And her star-eyed cherub brother-a serene angelic pair-

RAIN ON THE ROOF.

305

Glide around my wakeful pillow, with their praise or mild reproof,

As I listen to the murmur of the soft rain on the roof.

And another comes, to thrill me with her eyes' delicious blue; And I mind not, musing on her, that her heart was all untrue:

I remember but to love her with a passion kin to pain,
And my heart's quick pulses vibrate to the patter of the rain.

Art hath naught of tone or cadence that can work with such a spell

In the soul's mysterious fountains, whence the tears of rapture well,

As that melody of nature, that subdued, subduing strain, Which is played upon the shingles by the patter of the rain.

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