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Of Earth and her green family, doth make
In air redemption and soft gloryings.
The world, as though inspired, erectly flings
Its shadowy coronals away, to slake
A holy thirst for light; and one by one
The enamoured hills—with many a startled

dell,
Fountain and forest-blush before the sun!
Voices and wings are up, and waters swell ;
And flowers, like clustered shepherds, have

begun To ope their fragrant mouths, and heavenly

tidings tell.

Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest trees,

(pass To show, above, the unwasted stars that In their old glory. O thou God of old ! Grant me some smaller grace than comes

to these; But so much patience, as a blade of grass Grows by contented through the heat and

cold.

LOVE.

for years,

ALREALY hath the day grown grey with age;

(crowned, And in the west, like to a conqueror Is faint with too much glory, on the ground He flings his dazzling arms; and as a sage Prepares him for a cloud-hung hermitage, Where meditation meets him at the door; And all around-on wall, and roof, and

floorSome pensive star unfoldsits silver page Of truth, which God's own hand hath tes.

tified. Sweet eve! whom poets sing to as a bride, Queen of the quiet-Eden of time's bright

mapThy look allures me from my hushed fireside,

(tap, And sharp leaves rustling at my casement And beckon forth my mind to dream upon

thy lap.

I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished

(pears Who each one, in a gracious hand, ap. To bear a gift for mortals old and young; And as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw a gradual vision through my tears ; The sweet sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

['ware, A shadow across me. Straightway I was So weeping, how a mystic shape did move Behind me, and drew me backwards by

the hair, And a voice said in mastery while I strove, “Guess now who holds thée?” “Death,"

I said ; but there The silver answer rang—"Not Death, but

Love."

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ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

1809-1861.

PATIENCE TAUGHT BY NATURE.

LORD LYTTON.

(OWEN MEREDITH.) ALREADY evening; in the duskiest nook Of yon dusk corner, under the Death's head,

(legended Between the alembics, thrust this And iron-bound and melancholy book ;

For I will read no longer. The loud brook Shelves his sharp light up shallow banks thin-spread;

[and red ; The slumb'rous west grows slowly red Up from the ripened corn her silver hook

The moon is lifting ; and deliciously Along the warm blue hills the day declines. The first star brightens while she waits

[grows tight: And round her swelling heart the zone Musing, half sad, in her soft hair she twines The white rose, whispering, He will

come to-night."

for me,

“O DREARY life!' we cry, “O dreary

life!" And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks

and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife

[girds Against which we may struggle. Ocean Unslackened the dry land: savannahswards

[and rife Unweary sweep; hills watch, unworn;

WILLIAM M. ROSSETTI.

SHELLEY'S HEART.

(Cor Cordium.)

TO EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY. “What surprised us all was that the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt.

Trelawny's Records of Shelley.

Of heaven and earth was molten,-but its

part Immortal yet reverberates, and shall dart Pangs of keen love to human souls, and

dire Ecstatic sorrow of joy, as high and

higher They mount to know thee, Shelley, what

thou art :Trelawny's hand did then the outward burn As once the inward ? O cor cordium, Thou spirit of love scorched to a life

less clot, What other other flame was wont to

come Lambent from thee to fainter hearts, and

turn Their frost to fire of the sun's chariot !

TRELAWNY's hand, which held'st the

sacred heart, The heart of Shelley, and hast felt the

fire Wherein the drossier framework of that

lyre

"'Tis not restraint or liberty
That makes men prisoners or free,
But perturbations that possess
The mind or equanimities.
The whole world was not half so wide
To Alexander, when he cried
Because he had but one to subdue;
As was a paltry narrow tub to
Diogenes; who is not said
(For aught that ever I could read)
To whine, put finger i' the eye, and sob
Because he'd ne'er another tub.
The ancients make two several kinds
Of prowess in heroic minds,-
The active and the passive val'ant,
Both which are pari libra gallant ;
For both to give blows and to carry
In fights are equi-necessary ;
But in defeats the passive stout
Are always found to stand it out
Most desp'rately, and to outdo
The active 'gainst a conquering foe.

-If we had not weighty cause
To not appear in making laws,
We could, in spite of all your tricks
And shallow formal politics,
Force you our managements t' obey,
As we to yours (in show) give way.
Hence 'tis that while you vainly strive
T' advance your high prerogative,
You basely, after all your braves,
Submit, and own yourselves our slaves !
And 'cause we do not make it known,
Nor publicly our interests own,
Like sots, suppose we have no shares
In ordering you

and
When all your empire and command
You have from us at second-hand !
As if a pilot, that appears
To sit still only, while he steers,
And does not make a noise and stir
Like every common mariner,
Knew nothing of the card nor star,
And did not guide the man-of-war !
Nor we, because we don't appear
In councils, do not govern there;

your affairs;

*

A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity,
Pleased with the danger, when the waves

went high He sought the storm; but for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast

his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else why should he, with wealth and

honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please, Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? And all to leave what by his toil he won To that unfeathered, two-legged thing

a son !

We rule in every public meeting,
And make men do what we judge fitting ;
Are magistrates in all great towns,
Where men do nothing but wear gowns.
We make the man-of-war strike sail,
And to our braver conduct veil ;
And when he's chased his enemies,
Submit to us upon his knees.
Is there an officer of state
Untimely raised, or magistrate
That's haughty and imperious?
He's but a journeyman to us,
That, as he gives us cause to do't,
Can keep him in or turn him out.
We are your guardians, that increase
Or waste your fortunes how we please;
And, as you humour us, can deal
In all your matters ill or well.

In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state;
To compass this the triple bond he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke.
Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting

fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name;
So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's

(known, Where crowds can wink and no offence be Since, in another's guilt, they find their own !

(since, Now, manifest of crimes contrived long He stood at bold defiance with his prince; Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the Crown, and skulked behind

the laws.

will ;

*

*

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JOHN DRYDEN.

1631--1701. CHARACTER OF AN AMBITIOUS,

RESTLESS STATESMAN.

Of these the false Achitophel* was first
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
* Anthony Ashly Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury,

but a type rather than an individual.

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by turns, and nothing

long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buf