Alas, the warped and broken board, How can it bear the painter's dye! The harp of strained and tuneless chord,

How to the minstrel's skill reply! To aching eyes each landscape lowers, To feverish pulse each gale blows chill;

And Araby's or Eden's bowers

Were barren as this moorland hill.

THE VIOLET.

THE violet in her greenwood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle,

May boast itself the fairest flower

In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.

Though fair her gems of azure hue, Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining;

I've seen an eye of lovelier hue, More sweet through watery lustre shining.

The summer sun that dew shall dry, Ere yet the day be past its mor

row;

Nor longer in my false love's eye Remained the tear of parting sor

row.

HELVELLYN.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide; All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the
Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was
defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was the spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather, Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay,

Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,

For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended,

The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start ? How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh! was it meet, that -no requiem read o'er himNo mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before himUnhonored the pilgrim from life should depart ?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; In the proudly - arched chapel the banners are beaming,

Far adown the long aisles sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,

When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,

With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.

THE ROSE OF JERICHO.

AND was it not enough that, meekly growing,

In lack of all things wherein plants delight, Cool dews, rich soil, and gentle showers refreshing,

It yet could blossom into beauty bright?

In the hot desert, in the rocky crevice, By dusty waysides, on the rubbish heap, Where'er the Lord appoints, it smiles, believing

That where He planteth, He will surely keep!

Nay, this is not enough, the fierce

Now, at the fount their life-long thirst are quenching,

Whence rise the gentle showers, the nightly dew.

They drink the quickening streams through every fibre,

Until with hidden life each seed shall swell;

Then come the winds of God, his word fulfilling,

And bear them back, where He shall please, to dwell.

Thus live meek spirits, duly schooled to duty,

The whirlwind storm may sweep them from their place; What matter if by this affliction driven

Straight to their God, the fountain of all grace?

And when, at length, the final trial cometh,

Though hurled to unknown worlds,

they shall not die;

Borne not by winds of wrath, but God's own angels,

They feed upon His love and dwell beneath His eye.

Till by the angel of the resurrection, One awful blast through heaven and earth be blown;

floating,

That in their desert homes no mois

ture knew,

[From As You Like It.]

LIFE'S THEATRE.

ALL the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Jarms. Mewling and puking in his nurse's And then, the whining school-boy,

with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then, the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then,

the soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel;

Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,

In fair round belly, with good capon lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;

His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shanks; and his big manly voice, Turning again

treble, pipes

towards childish

scene of all

summation

tory,