EVENING SONG.

HEPHERDS all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air

SHEPHERDS and maidens f

'Gins to thicken, and the Sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dewdrops how they kiss
Every little flower that is,
Hanging on their velvet heads ·
Like a rope of crystal beads;
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead Night from under ground;
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapors fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face

Of these pastures, where they come,
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore, from such danger lock
Every one his lovèd flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away;

Or the crafty, thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourselves from these,
Be not too secure in ease;
Let one eye his watches keep,
Whilst the other eye doth sleep;
So shall you good shepherds prove,
And forever hold the love

Of our great god. Sweetest slumbers
And soft silence fall in numbers
On your eyelids! So, farewell!
Thus I end my evening's knell.

ONE

And soft as sleep the darkness falls,
The wood-dove from the forest calls,
The bat begins his wayward flight.

Streams, murmuring in the ear of night
Within the woody hollows wind,
Whose dusky boughs are intertwined
Above their music and their light.

The woodland range is dimly blue
With smoke, that creeps from cots unseen,
And briery hedge and meadow green

Put on their white night-robe of dew.

And every sound that breaks the calm
Is like a lullaby to rest;

All is at peace except the breast

That needs the most its soothing balm.

THE

EVENING.

HE stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,

A burnished length of wavy beam.

In an eel-like, spiral line below;
The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid,
And nought is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged Katydid;

And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill,
Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow.

-Joseph Rodman Drake.

A

THE EVENING CLOUD.

CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun;

A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow;

Long had I watched the glory moving on

O'er the still radiance of the lake below.

Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow!
Even in its very motion there was rest;
While every breath of eve that chanced to blow
Wafted the traveler to the beauteous west.

-John Wilson (Christopher North).

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

TEL

“ELL me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

Tell me, thou moon, so pale and gray,
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest

On the tree or billow?

-Percy Bysshe Shelley.

POETRY OF SUMMER.