And the wild legend from the old time wins,
Of sweet waves kissing all the drowning locks
Of Ilia's lovely twins.

Come, Poesy, and with thy shadowy hands
Cover me softly, singing all the night--
In thy dear presence find I best delight;
Even the saint that stands
Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams
Of rarest glory, to my mortal eyes
Pales from the blest insanity of dreams
That round thee lies.

Unto the dusky borders of the grove
Where gray-haired Saturn, silent as a stone,
Sat in his grief alone,
Or where young Venus, searching for her love,
Walked through the clouds, I pray,
Bear me to-night away.

Or wade with me through snows
Drifted in loose fantastic curves aside,
From humble doors where Love and Faith abide,
And no rough winter blows,
Chilling the beauty of affections fair,
Cabined securely there.

Where round their fingers winding the white slips
That crown his forehead, on the grandsire's knees,
Sit merry children, teasing about ships
Lost in the perilous seas;
Or listening with a troublous joy, yet deep,
To stories about battles, or of storms,
Till weary grown, and drowsing into sleep,
Slide they from out his arms.

Where, by the log-heap fire,
As the pane rattles and the cricket sings,
I with the gray-haired sire
May talk of vanished summer-times and springs,
And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile
The long, long hours--
The happier for the snows that drift the while
About the flowers.

Winter, wilt keep the love I offer thee?
No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow;
From life's fair summer I am hastening now,
And as I sink my knee,
Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow--
Dowerless, I can but say--
O, cast me not away!

CARLYLE ON THE OPERA.

The London _Keepsake_, for 1852, contains an article by Carlyle. He has
not sent something that was at hand, or thrown off any thing on the spur
of the moment, but set himself to write down to his company, and do his
best in that way. The paper is written in the character of a travelling
and philosophical American, who pours forth his thoughts on the opera;
the topics being the deterioration of music as an art, the small
beneficial result that follows so much outlay and such a combination of
artistic