Or if sometimes he be not here,
Like flowerets of the Spring,
Soon doth his beauty reappear,
A renovated thing.

Kin to all love and nobleness,
All glory is his heir;

No deed to praise, no sight to bless
Comes out, but he is there.

Is he alive in truth, or dead and dull,
And lost, for ever lost to mortal eye?

O friend, so noble and so beautiful,

While earth is fair, to me thou canst not die!

THOMAS BURBIDGE.

DIRGE.

KNOWS he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,

What mystic fruit his acres yield

At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood

As when my brothers, long ago,

Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,—the holy ones
Who trod with me this lovely vale,
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.

My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place!

They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy-
They treated Nature as they would.

They coloured the horizon round,

Stars flamed and faded as they bade, All echoes hearkened for their sound, They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf

Which once our childhood knew; Its soft leaves wound me with a grief Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine-warbler,
Singing aloft in the tree!
Hearest thou, O traveller,

What he singeth to me?

Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,

Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
Its heavy tale divine.

'Go, lonely man,' it saith,

'They loved thee from their birth; Their hands were pure, and pure their faithThere are no such hearts on earth.

'Ye drew one mother's milk,

One chamber held ye all,

A very tender history

Did in your childhood fall.

'Ye cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.'

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

'How is it? Canst thou feel for me
Some painless sympathy with pain?'

In Memoriam.

WHY fear that the departed grieves

Far from the mourner whom she leaves?

Who shall deny that when he stands,
With aching breast and strainèd hands,
His wan face raised to empty air,

And his hopes darkening to despair,—

E'en then the spirit whom he loved,
By close affection deeply moved,
Comes, with a swift angelic grace,
And gazes on the dear loved face,
Yearns to wipe off the raining tears
And whisper comfort in his ears?

Or rather, from beyond the flood
Leaning her young beatitude,
Sighs only gently to behold

How grief's sharp fires transmute her gold,
And, rich in insight newly given,

Counts every faltering step to Heaven?

Rests tenderly a soft distress

Upon the coming happiness :

And, blest to think how short a time
Severs these frosts from golden prime,
Smiles as a mother smiles to trace
Brief showers roll down her baby's face.

WILLIAM CALDwell Roscoe.

CONSOLATION.

LL are not taken there are left behind

AL

Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring And make the daylight still a happy thing, And tender voices to make soft the wind:

But if it were not so- -if I could find
No love in all the world for comforting,
Nor any path but hollowly did ring,

Where 'dust to dust' the love from life disjoined, And if, before those sepulchres unmoving

I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb

Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) Crying 'Where are ye, O my loved and loving?'I know a Voice would sound, Daughter, I AM. Can I suffice for Heaven, and not for Earth ?' ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

DEAR FRIEND, FAR OFF.

EAR friend, far off, my lost desire, So far, so near, in woe and weal; O loved the most when most I feel There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye,
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,

Mine, mine for ever, ever mine;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,

And mingle all the world with thee.

ALFRED TENNYSON.