Youths, though yet no losses grieve you,

Gay in health and manly grace, Let not cloudless skies deceive you, Summer gives to Autumn place Venerable sires, grown hoary,

Hither turn th' unwilling eye.
Think, amidst your falling glory
Autumn tells a winter nigh.

Yearly in our course returning,
Messengers of shortest stay,
Thus we preach, this truth concerning,
"Heaven and earth shall pass away."

On the Tree of Life eternal,

Man, let all thy hope be staid,

Which alone, for ever vernal,
Bears a leaf that shall not fade.

GEORGE HORNE.

LITTLE WILLIE.

POOR little Willie,

With his many pretty wiles; Worlds of wisdom in his look,

And quaint, quiet smiles. Hair of amber touch'd with

Gold of heaven so brave;

All lying darkly hid

In a workhouse grave.

You remember little Willie, Fair and funny fellow he

Sprang like a lily

From the dirt of poverty. Poor little Willie !

Not a friend was nigh, When from the cold world

He crouch'd down to die.

In the day we wander'd foodless,

Little Willie cried for "bread;" In the night we wander'd homeless, Little Willie cried for "bed." Parted at the workhouse door, Not a word we said; Ah! so tired was poor Willie,

And so sweetly sleep the dead.

'Twas in the dead of winter
We laid him in the earth;
The world brought in the new year
On a tide of mirth.
But, for lost little Willie

Not a tear we crave;

Cold and hunger cannot wake him
In his workhouse grave.

We thought him beautiful;
Felt it hard to part;
We loved him dutiful;

Down, down poor heart!
The storms they may beat,
The winter winds may rave;
Little Willie feels not

In his workhouse grave.

No room for little Willie ;

In the world he had no part ; On him stared the gorgon-eye Through which looks no heart. "Come to me," said heaven;

And if heaven will save,

Little matters though the door
Be a workhouse grave.

GERALD MASSEY.
Poetical Works. (Routledge.)

THE CHURCHYARD.

You may enter softly

At the wicket gate :

The moon is overclouded,
And the night grows late.
Even on the blackness
Black the steeple looms.
You may go and wander
All about the tombs.

Do not care to listen,

Stop, or hold your breath:

Do not fear to waken

Those that lie beneath. Death has dull'd their ears to Sound of wedding bell; Death has, with his poppies,

Seal'd their eyelids well.

GONE art thou? gone, and is the light of day
Still shining, is my hair not touched with grey?
But evening draweth nigh, I pass the door,
And see thee walking on the dim-lit shore.
Gone art thou? gone, and weary on the brink
Of Lethe waiting there. O do not drink ;
Drink not, forget not, wait a little while,
I shall be with thee; we again may smile.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.
A Poet's Harvest Home. (Elliot Stock.)

They found thee, Lady Mary,

With thy palms upon thy breast, Even as thou hadst been praying, At thine hour of rest: The cold pale moon was shining On thy cold pale cheek; And the morn of the Nativity Had just begun to break.

They carved thee, Lady Mary,
All of pure white stone,
With thy palms upon thy breast,

In the chancel all alone:

And I saw thee when the winter moon
Shone on thy marble cheek,
When the morn of the Nativity
Had just began to break.

But thou kneelest, Lady Mary,

With thy palms upon thy breast, Among the perfect spirits,

In the land of rest:
Thou art even as they took thee
At thine hour of prayer,
Save the glory that is on thee

From the Sun that shineth there,

We shall see thee, Lady Mary,
On that shore unknown,
A pure and happy angel

In the presence of the throne;
We shall see thee when the light divine
Plays freshly on thy cheek,

And the resurrection morning

Hath just begun to break.

HENRY ALFORD. Poetical Works. (Isbister.)

LADY MARY.

THOU wert fair, Lady Mary,

As the lily in the sun :

And fairer yet thou mightest be, Thy youth was but begun: Thine eye was soft and glancing, Of the deep bright blue;

And on the heart thy gentle words Fell lighter than the dew.

AT HER GRAVE.

I HAVE stayed too long from your grave, it seems, Now I come back again.

Love, have you stirred down there in your dreams
Through the sunny days or the rain?

Ah, no! the same peace; you are happy so;
And your flowers, how do they grow?

WE two that could not part are parted long ;
He in the far-off Heaven, and I to wait.
A fair world once, all blossom-time and song;
But to be lonely tires, and I live late.
To think we two have not a word to change:
And one without the other here is strange!

To think we two have nothing now to share:
I wondering here, and he without me there!
AUGUSTA WEBSTER.

A Book of Rhyme: English Stornelli. (Macmillan.)

WE TWO.

WE two, we two! we still are linked and nigh: He could not have forgotten in any bliss; Surely he feels my being yet; and I,

I have no thought but seems some part of his. Oh love gone out of reach of yearning eyes, Our hearts can meet to gather-in replies:

Oh love past touch of lip and clasp of hand, Thou canst not be too far to understand.

AUGUSTA WEBSTER.

A Book of Rhyme: English Stornelli. (Macmillan.)

MY TOMB.1

(Written on a proposal made during Béranger's lifetime, to raise a subscription for a tomb for him.) WHAT! bury Béranger in state

Rear a tomb where these old bones are laid? No, leave to the proud and the great

The farce of funereal parade.
Bronze and marble be casings too fine

For dust whence the spirit has past;
Go, buy me a cellar of wine,

To gladden our lives while they last. The pile you're so anxious to rear,

Will cost you some thousands of pounds;
With which money we'll hire for a year
Some snug little mansion with grounds;
And then, when our cash is all spent,

In dinner, in concert, and ball,
Down I'll lay me, resigned and content,
Without any tombstone at all!

Then, my worthy kind friends, though I'm old,
Here's a maid has a fancy for me;
Girls sometimes like presents, I'm told,

And my pockets are empty, you see.
If the price of a shawl could be found

In this sum you've amassed—I'm not proud— "Twill do her more good, I'll be bound, Than the tomb would do me in my shroud.

HIS LADY FRIENDS DEPLORE THE

DEAN'S DEPARTURE.
(From "On the Death of Dr. Swift.")
My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learned to act their parts,
Receive the news in doleful dumps :

"The Dean is dead. (Pray, what is trumps?)

Then, Lord have mercy on his soul!
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole,)
Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall.
(I wish I knew what king to call.)
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend?
No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight;
And he's engaged to-morrow night:

My Lady Club will take it ill,
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the Dean-(I lead a heart)—
But dearest friends, they say, must part.
His time was come: he'd run his race;
We hope he's in a better place."

JONATHAN Swift.

GROWING ON A GRAVE.
Love, on your grave in the ground
Sweet flowers I planted are growing;
Lilies and violets abound,
Pansies border it round,

And cowslips, all of my sowing;
A creeper is trying to cover
Your name with a kiss like a lover.

Dear, on your grave, in my heart,

Grow flowers you planted when living,
Memories that cannot depart,
Faith in life's holier part,

Love, all of your giving;
And Hope, climbing higher, is surer
To reach you as life grows purer.

ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY.
Songs of a Worker. (Chatto and Windus.)

A VERY worthless rogue may dig the grave,
But hands unseen will dress the turf with daisies.
FREDERICK LOCKER.
London Lyrics. (K. Paul.)

VEIL We the dead, and close the open door.
Perhaps the spirit, ere it soar above,
Would watch its clay alone, and hover o'er
The face it once had kindled into love;
Commune we hence, O friend, this wakeful night,
Of death made lovely by so blest a sight.

HENRY W. PARKER.

As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed, To think I was not near to keep One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.
Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears Than aught, except its living years.

LORD BYRON.

QUIET WATERS.

O RAINBOW, Rainbow, on the livid height,
Softening its ashen outlines into dream,
Dewy yet brilliant, delicately bright

As pink wild-roses' leaves, why dost thou gleam So beckoningly? Whom dost thou invite

Still higher upward on the bitter quest? What dost thou promise to the weary sight

In that strange region whence thou issuest? Speakest thou of pensive runlets by whose side Our dear ones wander sweet and gentle-eyed, In the soft dawn of some diviner Day? Art thou a promise? Come those hues and dyes From heavenly Meads, near which thou dost arise, Iris'd from Quiet Waters, far away?

ROBERT BUCHANAN. Coruisken Sonnets: Poetical Works, Vol. III.

A PRAYER.

GOD! do not let my loved one die,
But rather wait until the time
That I am grown in purity

Enough to enter thy pure clime;
Then take me, I will gladly go,
So that my love remain below!
O, let her stay! She is by birth

What I through death must learn to be,
We need her more on our poor earth

Than thou canst need in heaven with thee: She hath her wings already, I

Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly.

'Tis sweet to think the pure ethereal being,
Whose mortal form reposes with the dead,
Still hovers round unseen, yet not unseeing,
Benignly smiling o'er the mourner's bed!

She comes in dreams, a thing of light and lightness;
I hear her voice, in still, small accents tell
Of realms of bliss, and never-fading brightness;
Where those who lov'd on earth, together dwell.
Ah! yet awhile, blest shade, thy flight delaying,

The kindred soul with mystic converse cheer; To her rapt gaze, in visions bland displaying, The unearthly glories of thy happier sphere! Yet, yet remain! till freed like thee, delighted, She spurns the thraldom of encumbering clay; Then, as on earth, in tend'rest love united, Together seek the realms of endless day!

R. H. BARHAM. Ingoldsby Legends. (R. Bentley and Son.)