"And while he rests, his songs in troops
Walk up and down our earthly slopes,
Companioned by diviner hopes."

"But thou," I murmured to engage

The child's speech farther-"hast an age
Too tender for this orphanage."

"Glory to God-to God!" he saith,
"KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH,
AND LIFE IS PERFECTED BY DEATH."

INSUFFICIENCY.

WHEN I attain to utter forth in verse
Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly
Along my pulses, yearning to be free

And something farther, fuller, higher, rehearse,
To the individual, true, and the universe,

In consummation of right harmony:

But, like a wind-exposed distorted tree,

We are blown against for ever by the curse

Which breathes through nature. Oh, the world is weak,

The effluence of each is false to all,

And what we best conceive we fail to speak.

Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall,

And then resume thy broken strains, and seek
Fit peroration without let or thrall.

TWO SKETCHES.

H. B.

THE shadow of her face upon the wall
May take your memory to the perfect Greek,
But when you front her, you would call the cheek
Too full, sir, for your models, if withal
That bloom it wears could leave you critical,
And that smile reaching toward the rosy streak;
For one who smiles so, has no need to speak
To lead your thoughts along, as steed to stall.
A smile that turns the sunny side o' the heart
On all the world, as if herself did win
By what she lavished on an open mart!
Let no man call the liberal sweetness, sin,-
For friends may whisper as they stand apart,
"Methinks there 's still some warmer place within."

II

A. B.

HER azure eyes, dark lashes hold in fee;
Her fair superfluous ringlets without check
Drop after one another down her neck,
As many to each cheek as you might see
Green leaves to a wild rose; this sign outwardly,
And a like woman-covering seems to deck
Her inner nature, for she will not fleck
World's sunshine with a finger. Sympathy
Must call her in Love's name! and then, I know,
She rises up, and brightens as she should,
And lights her smile for comfort, and is slow
In nothing of high-hearted fortitude.

To smell this flower, come near it! such can grow

In that sole garden where Christ's brow dropped blood.

MOUNTAINEER AND POET.

THE simple goatherd between Alp and sky,
Seeing his shadow, in that awful tryst,
Dilated to a giant's on the mist,

Esteems not his own stature larger by

The apparent image, but more patiently
Strikes his staff down beneath his clenching fist,
While the snow-mountains lift their amethyst
And sapphire crowns of splendour, far and nigh,
Into the air around him. Learn from hence
Meek morals, all ye poets that pursue
Your way still onward up to eminence !

Ye are not great because creation drew
Large revelations round your earliest sense,
Nor bright because God's glory shines for you.

FELICIA HEMANS.

TO L. E. L., REFERRING TO HER MONODY ON THE POETESS.

THOU bay-crowned living One that o'er the bay-crowned Dead art bowing,

And o'er the shadeless moveless brow the vital shadow throwing,

And o'er the sighless songless lips the wail and music wedding,

And dropping o'er the tranquil eyes the tears not of their shedding!

Take music from the silent Dead whose meaning is completer,

Reserve thy tears for living brows where all such tears are meeter,

And leave the violets in the grass to brighten where thou treadest:

No flowers for her! no need of flowers, albeit "bring flowers," thou saidest.

Yes, flowers, to crown the "

may come to breaking,

cup and lute," since both

Or flowers, to greet the "bride ”—the heart's own beating works its aching;

Or flowers, to soothe the "captive's" sight, from earth's free bosom gathered,

Reminding of his earthly hope, then withering as it withered:

But bring not near the solemn corse a type of human seeming,

Lay only dust's stern verity upon the dust undreaming : And while the calm perpetual stars shall look upon it

solely,

Her sphered soul shall look on them with eyes more bright and holy.

Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning :

Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning?

The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the afflated

Woe? or the vision, for those tears in which it shone dilated?

Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand her brow was wreathing,

But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her breathing,

Which drew from rocky earth and man, abstractions high and moving,

Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the loving.

Such visionings have paled in sight; the Saviour she descrieth,

And little recks who wreathed the brow which on His

bosom lieth:

The whiteness of His innocence o'er all her garments flowing,

There learneth she the sweet "new song" she will not mourn in knowing.

Be happy, crowned and living One! and as thy dust decayeth

May thine own England say for thee what now for Her it sayeth

"Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing, The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than her singing."

L. E. L'S LAST QUESTION.

"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape.

"Do you think of me as I think of you,

My friends, my friends?"-She said it from the sea, The English minstrel in her minstrelsy,

While, under brighter skies than erst she knew,

Her heart grew dark, and groped there as the blind
To reach across the waves friends left behind-
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

It seemed not much to ask-" as I of you?"
We all do ask the same; no eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes that question over:
And little in the world the Loving do
But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore-
Do you think of me as I think of you?"