A SUMMER WISH.

LIVE all thy sweet life thro’,

Sweet rose, dew-sprent ;

Drop down thine evening dew
To gather it anew

When day is bright:

I fancy thou wast meant

Chiefly to give delight.

Sing in the silent sky,
Glad soaring bird;

Sing out thy notes on high
To sunbeam straying by

Or passing cloud;

Heedless if thou art heard,

Sing thy full song aloud.

Oh that it were with me

As with the flower, Blooming on its own tree For butterfly and bee

Its summer morns;

That I might bloom mine hour

A rose in spite of thorns.

Oh that my work were done

As birds' that soar

Rejoicing in the sun;
That when my time is run

And daylight too,

I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

OCTOBER.

FAIR leaf, so crisp and curled and yet so fair,

Whose veinèd purples shading into bronze
Make autumn lovely; is it hard, for once
To fall thus gently through the silent air

And die?

Fair bird, uprising from the startled brake
On wings that only bear thee into death,
Is it such pain, to leave thy haunt beneath
The hazels, and of wounds that man can make
To die?

Fair rose, yet lingering where yon topmost spray Climbs through the trellis o'er the garden wall, Is it such grief, to see thy petals fall

So fast, and, having watched them all away,

To die?

Thus while I sit and murmur, half in dreams,
Across the valley like a parted soul

Shoots the white steam of travel: though its goal

Be far, it dips into the earth, and seems

To die.

Ah then, I said, if death be only this

Through the dark hills a channel short and wide, That leads to sunshine on the other sideThen better than the best of life it is

To die.

ARTHUR MUNBY.

THE RAINBOW.

STILL young and fine! but what is still in view

We slight as old and soiled, though fresh and new.
How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye
Thy burnished flaming arch did first descry!
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's grey fathers, in one knot
Did with intentive looks watch every hour

For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair,
Storms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air:
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distant and low, I can in thine see him '
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant 'twixt all and One.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

A DROP OF DEW.

EE how the orient dew

SER

Shed from the bosom of the morn
Into the blowing roses,

Yet careless of its mansion new

For the clear region where 'twas born,
Round in itself incloses,

And in its little globe's extent
Frames, as it can, its native element.
How it the purple flower does slight,
Scarce touching where it lies;

But, gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light,
Like its own tear,

Because so long divided from the sphere.
Restless it rolls and unsecure,

Trembling lest it grow impure,

Till the warm sun pities its pain, And to the skies exhales it back again.

So the soul, that drop, that ray,

Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flower be seen,
Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,

And, recollecting its own light,

Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away;
So the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day."
Dark beneath, but bright above;
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go;
How girt and ready to ascend;
Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend.

Such did the manna's sacred dew distil,

White and entire, though congealed and chill; Congealed on earth, but does dissolving run Into the glories of the almighty Sun.

ANDREW MARVELL.

SWE

VIRTUE.

WEET Day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,

For thou must die.

Sweet Rose, whose hue, angry and brave,

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.