Yet, glancing through our misty clime,

Some sparkles from that loftier sphere Make way to earth ;-then most what time The annual spring-flowers reappear.

Amid the coarser needs of earth

All shapes of brightness, what are they
But wanderers exiled from their birth,
Or pledges of a happier day?

Yea, what is Beauty, judged aright,

But some surpassing, transient gleam; Some smile from heaven, in waves of light, Rippling o'er life's distempered dream?

Or broken memories of that bliss

Which rushed thro' first-born Nature's blood When He who ever was and is

Looked down and saw that all was good?

AUBREY DE Vere.

THE DAFFODILS.

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

WORDSWORTH.

COMES

EVENTIDE.

OMES something down with eventide,
Beside the sunset's golden bars,

Beside the floating scents, beside
The twinkling shadows of the stars.

Upon the river's rippling face,

Flash after flash, the white
Broke up in many a shallow place;
The rest was soft and bright.

By chance my eye fell on the stream:
- How many a marvellous power
Sleeps in us-sleeps, and doth not dream!
This knew I in that hour.

For then my heart, so full of strife,
No more was in me stirred;
My life was in the river's life,
And I nor saw nor heard.

I and the river, we were one:
The shade beneath the bank,
I felt it cool; the setting sun
Into my spirit sank.

A rushing thing in power serene
I was; the mystery

I felt of having ever been,
'And being still to be.

Was it a moment or an hour?
I know not; but I mourned
When, from that realm of awful power,
I to these fields returned.

THOMAS BURBIDGE.

MAN.

Y God, I heard this day

MY

That none doth build a stately

habitation

But he that means to dwell therein.

What house more stately hath there been, Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation All things are in decay.

And more.

For Man is every thing,

He is a tree, yet bears no fruit; A beast, yet is, or should be, more : Reason and speech we only bring. Parrots may thank us if they are not mute, They go upon the score.

Man is. all symmetry,

Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides :

Each part may call the farthest, brother;
For head with foot hath private amity,
And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so far

But man hath caught and kept it as his prey. His eyes dismount the highest star;

He is in little all the sphere.

Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they Find their acquaintance there.

For us the winds do blow,

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see but means our good,

As our delight, or as our treasure. The whole is either our cupboard of food Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed;

Night draws the curtain which the sun withdraws :
Music and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kind
In their descent and being; to our mind
In their ascent and cause.

Each thing is full of duty :

Waters united are our navigation;

Distinguished, our habitation;

Below, our drink; above, our meat : Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty? Then how are all things neat!

More servants wait on man

Than he'll take notice of: in every path

He treads down that which doth befriend him When sickness makes him pale and wan. Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him.

Since then, my God, Thou hast

So brave a Palace built, oh dwell in it,
That it may dwell with Thee at last!