IMITATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE. BY WILLIAM FALCONER. The Shepherd. Whither speed you, brooklet fair, Fringed with willows green, Blue-gleaming clear as summer air, Your rival banks between; Singing to the listening trees An endless melody, Kissed by every amorous breeze? Come tarry and reply. The Brook. I haste to turn the mill-wheel gay, That glads the summer morn; The mill must clatter night and day, To grind the miller’s corn. The Shepherd. I envy you your joyous life— With courage rare you race, To meet the miller’s bonnie wife, And glass her morning face. The Brook. Yes! when Aurora lights the scene With charms, as fresh she laves Her sunny hair and brow serene In my dew-treasured waves, To me her beauty she confides, I smile her blush to greet, And when her form my lymph divides, It thrills with passionate heat. The Shepherd. If thus your gelid waters glow, With love’s pervading flame, To echo, murmuring as they flow, Her soft and winning name; How must my throbbing bosom burn, Warmed by life’s fitful fever, Still doomed, where’er my steps I turn, To love her more than ever. The Brook. On the mill-wheel, with blustering toil, I burst in pearly shower, But when I view her bloomy smile, Fresh at the matin hour, A polished mirror, gleaming sweet, I tremble into calm, To woo, in love, her gentle feet, My azure to embalm. The Shepherd. Are you, too, love-sick, leafy brook? Yet why?—on you she smiles, And pays you, with a grateful look, Your pleasant summer toils; She sports upon your crystal breast, Pure as your mountain source— Fond brook, do not her charms arrest Your shady downward course? The Brook. Alas! ’tis with a world of pain, I murmuring glide away, A thousand turns I make, in vain, ’Neath many a birchen-spray; But through the meadows I must glide— Ah! were it in my power, A blue-lake swan, loved by her side, I’d spread, nor quit her bower. The Shepherd. Companion of my luckless love, Farewell! But may, ere long, Thy plaint, which saddens now the grove, Be turned to merry song; Flow on, my vows, and sigh declare, Paint—paint in colors warm— The bliss her shepherd hopes to share, Where birds the greenwood charm. * * * * * HARRY CAVENDISH. BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” “THE REEFER OF ’76,” ETC. THE OPEN BOAT.