WHAT THE WINDS BRING. WHICH is the wind that brings the cold? Which is the wind that brings the heat? When the south begins to blow. Which is the wind that brings the rain? Which is the wind that brings the flowers? EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. THE DANCING OF THE AIR. AND now behold your tender nurse, the air, And common neighbor that aye runs around," How many pictures and impressions fair Within her empty regions are there found, Which to your senses dancing do propound! For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds, But dancings of the air in sundry kinds? For when you breathe, the air in order moves, Now in, now out, in time and measure true; Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born, And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life, The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech, Loadstone of fellowship, charming-rod of strife, The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech. With thine own tongue thou trees and stones canst teach, That, when the air doth dance her finest measure, Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure. Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume, Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl in her bloom? In color though varied, in beauty may vie, Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? O, wild as the accents of lover's farewell Are the hearts which they bear and the tales which they tell! SYRIA. LORD BYRON. FROM "PARADISE AND THE PERI." Now, upon Syria's land of roses To one who looked from upper air THE VALE OF CASHMERE. FROM "THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM." WHO has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, gave, Its temples, and grottoes, and fountains as clear wave? man learned -- To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, ere he framed And spread the roof above them, The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. For his simple heart Might not resist the sacred influences Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound Of the invisible breath that swayed at once All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed A last look of her mirror at night ere she His spirit with the thought of boundless power And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why goes! When the shrines through the foliage are gleam- Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore ing half shown, O, to see it at sunset, when warm o'er the lake And each hallows the hour by some rites of its Only among the crowd, and under roofs own. Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells, Here the Magian his urn full of perfume is swinging, And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing. That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, Father, thy hand Or to see it by moonlight, — when mellowly Hath reared these venerable columns, thou shines The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines; When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars, Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose All these fair ranks of trees. They in thy sun And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy Chenars Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet people meet. herbs, Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots In all that proud old world beyond the deep, My heart is awed within me when I think Lo all grow old and die; but see again, Of his arch-enemy Death, yea, seats himself There have been holy men who hid themselves The generation born with them, nor seemed But let me often to these solitudes Retire, and in thy presence reassure With all the waters of the firmament, The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO "EVANGELINE." THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ? HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, |