G

THE MINUET.

RANDMA told me all about it,
Told me, so I couldn't doubt it,
How she danced-my grandma danced!
Long ago.

How she held her pretty head,
How her dainty skirt she spread,
How she turned her little toes,
Smiling little human rose!
Long ago.

Grandma's hair was bright and sunny;
Dimpled cheeks, too-ah, how funny!
Really quite a pretty girl,

Long ago.

Bless her! why, she wears a cap,
Grandma does, and takes a nap
Every single day, and yet
Grandma danced the minuet,
Long ago.

Grandma says our modern jumping,
Hopping, whirling, rushing, bumping,
Would have shocked the gentlefolk,
Long ago.

No; they moved with stately grace,
Everything in proper place,
Gliding slowly forward, then
Slowly curtseying back again,
Long ago.

Modern ways are quite alarming,

Grandma says; but boys were charming-
Girls and boys it means, of course-
Long ago.

Bravely modest, grandly shy,
What if all of us should try
Just to feel like those who met
In the graceful minuet,
Long ago.

With the minuet in fashion
Who could fly into a passion?
All would wear the calm they wore,
Long ago.

In time to come if I, perchance,
Should tell my grandchild of our dance,
I should dearly like to say,

"We did it, dear, in some such way,
Long ago."

S

LUCY.

HE dwelt among the untrodden ways,
Beside the Springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh,

The difference to me!

Wordsworth.

T

CUMNOR HALL.

HE dews of summer night did fall,
The moon (sweet regent of the sky)
Silver'd the walls of Cumnor Hall,

And many an oak that grew thereby.

Now nought was heard beneath the skies (The sounds of busy life were still), Save an unhappy lady's sighs,

That issued from that lonely pile.

"Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love
That thou so oft hast sworn to me,
To leave me in this lonely grove,
Immured in shameful privity?

No more thou com'st, with lover's speed,
Thy once beloved bride to see;

But be she alive, or be she dead,

I fear, stern Earl, is the same to thee.

Not so the usage I received

When happy in my father's hall;
No faithless husband then me grieved,
No chilling fears did me appal.

I rose up with the cheerful morn,
No lark so blithe, no flower more gay;
And, like the bird that haunts the thorn,
So merrily sung the livelong day.

If that my beauty is but small,
Among court ladies all despised,
Why didst thou rend it from that hall

Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized?

And when you

first to me made suit, How fair I was, you oft would say! And, proud of conquest, pluck'd the fruit, Then left the blossom to decay.

Yes! now neglected and despised,
The rose is pale, the lily's dead;
But he that once their charms so prized,
Is sure the cause those charms are fled.

For know, when sickening grief doth prey,
And tender love's repaid with scorn,
The sweetest beauty will decay:

What floweret can endure the storm?

At court, I'm told, is Beauty's throne,
Where every lady's passing rare,
That eastern flowers, that shame the sun,
Are not so glowing, not so fair.

Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds
Where roses and where lilies vie,
To seek a primrose, whose pale shades
Must sicken when those gauds are by?

'Mong rural beauties I was one;

Among the fields wild flowers are fair;
Some country swain might me have won,
And thought my passing beauty rare.

But, Leicester (or I much am wrong),
It is not beauty lures thy vows;
Rather ambition's gilded crown

Makes thee forget thy humble spouse.

Then, Leicester, why, again I plead (The injured surely may repine), Why didst thou wed a country maid,

When some fair princess might be thine?