IIOW PURE AT HEART.

HOW pure at heart and sound in head,

With what divine affections bold

Should be the man whose thought would hold

An hour's communion with the dead.

In vain shalt thou, or any, call

The spirits from their golden day,

Except, like them, thou too canst say

My spirit is at peace with all.

They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,
The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest:

But when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates
And hear the household jar within.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

SUSPIRIA.

AKE them, O Death! and bear away

TAKE

Whatever thou canst call thine own! Thine image, stamped upon this clay,

Doth give thee that, but that alone.

Take them, O Grave! and let them lie,
Folded upon thy narrow shelves,

As garments by the soul laid by,
And precious only to ourselves.

Take them, O great Eternity!
Our little life is but a gust,
That bends the branches of thy tree
And trails its blossoms in the dust..

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE PROSPECT.

METHINKS we do as fretful children do,

Leaning their faces on the window-pane

To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain,
And shut the sky and landscape from their view:
And thus, alas, since God the Maker drew
A mystic separation 'twixt those twain,
The life beyond us, and our souls in pain,
We miss the prospect which we are called unto,
By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong,
O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong;
That so, as life's appointment issueth,

Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

U

O LIVING WILL.

LIVING will that shalt endure,

When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out of dust

A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer'd years To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

NOTES.

PAGE

6. MAY CAROLS.-The 2nd of Part I. and 10th of Part II.

of the May Carols.

9. EVENTIDE. The second part of the poem.

43. TO A SKYLARK.-As originally published.

The second

stanza was afterwards transferred to the poem, A Morning Exercise.

53. THREE SONNETS.-From the series of Coruisken Sonnets in the Book of Orm.

55. The LuggiE.-Refers to The Luggie and other Poems. By David Gray.

60. THE RAINBOW.-The first part of the poem.

69. THE RIGHT MUST WIN.-Nine stanzas omitted.

71. THE MANLY LIFE. -An extract from Cupid's Conflict. 78. GOOD LIFE.-The third strophe of the Ode to the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison.

are

95. AGAINST TEARS. -The poems by Miss Williams from Twilight Hours. Published by Strahan and Co. 97. SONNET.-Quoted by Dr. George MacDonald in Adela

Cathcart.

97. WITH HIS STRIPES.-From Hymns for the Christian Church and Home. Edited by the Rev. James Martineau.

119. DRYNESS IN PRAYER.-One stanza omitted.

131. THE LORD IS MY PORTION.-Three stanzas omitted.

PAGE

148. STRONG SON OF GOD.-The last three stanzas omitted. 164. SOWING IN FAITH.-Sonnet addressed to the Rev. John Hamilton Thom.

164. THY WAY IS IN THE DEEP.-See note to p. 97.
192. THE STARRY SKIES.-One stanza omitted.
200. THE NIGHT.-The latter part of the poem.

221. Two SONNETS.-See note to p. 53.

235. LIFE.-An extract from the original poem.

258. GIVE PARDON.-The first of four Sonnets addressed by Henry Constable to Sir Philip Sidney's Soul, prefixed to Sidney's Apology for Poetry, 1595.

264. DEATH OF TWO CHILDREN.—They were the daughters of the Hon. Gustavus and Lady Katharine Hamilton Russell, the eldest of whom died by an accident during the mortal illness of her sister, who almost immediately followed her. They were both buried on the same day. 265. DEATH OF BABE CHRISTABEL.—The last two sections of The Ballad of Babe Christabel.

277. BURIAL OF THE DEAD.—The occasion of this poem was the death of the author's sister. It was written a few months after.