I think that though the clouds be dark,
That though the waves dash o'er the bark,
Yet after while the light will come,
And in calm waters safe at home
The bark will anchor.
Weep not, my sad-eyed, gray-robed maid,
Because your fairest blossoms fade,
That sorrow still o'erruns your cup,
And even though you root them up,
The weeds grow ranker.

For after while your tears shall cease,
And sorrow shall give way to peace;
The flowers shall bloom, the weeds shall die,
And in that faith seen, by and by
Thy woes shall perish.
Smile at old Fortune's adverse tide,
Smile when the scoffers sneer and chide.
Oh, not for you the gems that pale,
And not for you the flowers that fail;
Let this thought cherish:

That after while the clouds will part...

Beyond the night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of dawn released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of day-pursuing morn!

Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death
That hold my heart, I feel my new life's breath,
I see the face my spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.

Beyond the night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great Cause, too, - sure as the sun yon ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say;
"I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!"

                            * * * * *

When I was young, the muse I wors...

Last night the Stork came stalking,
And, Stork, beneath your wing
Lay, lapped in dreamless slumber,
The tiniest little thing!
From Babyland, out yonder
Beside a silver sea,
You brought a priceless treasure
As gift to mine and me!

Last night my dear one listened -
And, wife, you knew the cry -
The dear old Stork has sought our home
A many times gone by!
And in your gentle bosom
I found the pretty thing
That from the realm out yonder
Our friend the Stork did bring.

Last night a babe awakened,
And, babe, how strange and new
Must seem the home and people
The Stork has brought you to;
And yet methinks you like them -
You neither stare nor weep,
But closer to my dear one
You cuddle, and you sleep!

Last night ...

("Oh, quand je dors.")

[XXVII.]


Oh! when I sleep, come near my resting-place,
As Laura came to bless her poet's heart,
And let thy breath in passing touch my face -
    At once a space
        My lips will part.

And on my brow where too long weighed supreme
A vision - haply spent now - black as night,
Let thy look as a star arise and beam -
    At once my dream
        Will seem of light.

Then press my lips, where plays a flame of bliss -
A pure and holy love-light - and forsake
The angel for the woman in a kiss -
    At once, I wis,
        My soul will wake!

WM. W. TOMLINSON.

The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.

God gives his child upon his slate a sum--
    To find eternity in hours and years;
With both sides covered, back the child doth come,
    His dim eyes swollen with shed and unshed tears;
God smiles, wipes clean the upper side and nether,
And says, "Now, dear, we'll do the sum together!"

Ah, love, my love is like a cry in the night,
A long, loud cry to the empty sky,
The cry of a man alone in the desert,
With hands uplifted, with parching lips,

Oh, rescue me, rescue me,
Thy form to mine arms,
The dew of thy lips to my mouth,
Dost thou hear me?--my call thro' the night?

Darling, I hear thee and answer,
Thy fountain am I,
All of the love of my soul will I bring to thee,
All of the pains of my being shall wring to thee,
Deep and forever the song of my loving shall sing to thee,
Ever and ever thro' day and thro' night shall I cling to thee.
Hearest thou the answer?
Darling, I come, I come.

Young again!    Young again!
Beating heart!    I deemed that sorrow,
With its torture-rack of pain,
Had eclipsed each bright to-morrow;
And that Love could never rise
Into life's cerulean skies,
Singing the divine refrain -
    "Young again!    Young again!"

Young again!    Young again!
Passion dies as we grow older;
Love that in repose has lain,
Takes a higher flight, and bolder:
Fresh from rest and dewy sleep,
Like the skylark's matin sweep,
Singing the divine refrain -
    "Young again!    Young again!"

Young again!    Young again!
Book of Youth, thy sunny pages
Here and there a tear may stain,
But 'tis Love that makes us sages.
Love, Hope, Youth - blest trinity!
Wanting these, and what were we?
Who would chant the ...

Bright glittering lights are gleaming in yonder mansion proud,
And within its walls are gathered a gemmed and jewelled crowd;
Robes of airy gauze and satin, diamonds and rubies bright,
Rich festoons of glowing flowers - truly 'tis a wondrous sight.

Time and care and gold were lavished that it might be, every way,
The success of all the season - brilliant fashionable gay.
'Tis the birth night of the heiress of this splendor wealth and state,
The sole child, the only darling, of a household of the great.

Now the strains of the fast galop on the perfumed air arise,
Rosy cheeks are turning carmine, brighter grow the brightest eyes,
As the whirling crowds of dancers pass again and yet again -
Girls coquettish, silly women, vapid and unmeaning men.

'Tis a scene...

    Elenor Murray asked to go in training
    And came to see me, but the school was full,
    We could not take her. Then she asked to stand
    Upon a list and wait, I put her off.
    She came back, and she came back, till at last
    I took her application; then she came
    And pushed herself and asked when she could come,
    And start to train. At last I laughed and said:
    "Well, come to-morrow." I had never seen
    Such eagerness, persistence. So she came.
    She tried to make a friend of me, perhaps
    Since it was best, I being in command.
    But anyway she wooed me, tried to please me.
    And spite of everything I grew to love her,
    Though I distrusted her. But yet again
    I had belief in her best self, though doubting
    The girl some...

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remember’d night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper’d love.

Since then how often hast thou prest
The torrid zone of this wild breast,
Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell
With the first sin that peopled hell;
A breast whose blood’s a troubled ocean,
Each throb the earthquake’s wild commotion!
O if such clime thou canst endure
Yet keep thy hue unstain’d and pure,
What conquest o’er each erring thought
Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought!
I had not wander’d far and wide
With such an angel for my guide;
Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove me
If she had lived and lived to love me.

Not then this world’s wild joys had been
To me one savage hun...

I
Enchanter of Erin, whose magic has bound us,
Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim,
Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us
That blush into life at the sound of thy name.

The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers, -
I hear the old song with its tender refrain, -
What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers
What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain!

The home of my childhood comes back as a vision, -
Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room, -
'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian, -
The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom, -

We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano, -
There were six of us then, - there are two of us now, -
She is singing - the girl with the silver soprano -
How...

Let me to-day do something that shall take
    A little sadness from the world's vast store,
And may I be so favoured as to make
    Of joy's too scanty sum a little more
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
    Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
    Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth,
    Let me give something that shall aid my. kind -
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
    Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me to-night look back across the span
    'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say -
Because of some good act to beast or man -
    "The world is better that I lived to-day."

Dear Dolly! who does not recall
The thrilling page that pictured all
Those charms that held our sense in thrall
Just as the artist caught her,
As down that English lane she tripped,
In bowered chintz, hat sideways tipped,
Trim-bodiced, bright-eyed, roguish-lipped,
The locksmith’s pretty daughter?

Sweet fragment of the Master’s art!
O simple faith! O rustic heart!
O maid that hath no counterpart
In life’s dry, dog-eared pages!
Where shall we find thy like? Ah, stay!
Methinks I saw her yesterday
In chintz that flowered, as one might say,
Perennial for ages.

Her father’s modest cot was stone,
Five stories high; in style and tone
Composite, and, I frankly own,
Within its walls revealing
Some certain novel, strange ideas:
A Goth...

As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.

One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes.
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting--

Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,
Like a dead, leafless branch in the summer's bright ray;
The beams of the warm sun play round it in vain,
It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.

Yes, I could love, could softly yield
To passion all my willing breast,
And fondly listen to the voice
That oft invites me to be blest;

That still, when Fancy, lost in bliss,
Stands gazing on the form divine,
So sweetly whispers to my soul,
O make the heavenly Julia thine!

But hush, thou fascinating voice!
Hence visionary extacy!
Yes, I could love, but ah! I fear
She would not deign to smile on me.

As one, a poet of a fairy's train,
    Might sit beside a violet's stem and view
    Its opening petals, watch the wondrous blue
Thrill through their fibers, and their secret gain
Of how the earth and sky and wind and rain
    Had given them life and form and scent and hue,--
    So I have gazed into the eyes of you,
Those rare blue eyes, and have not looked in vain;
For they have told me all that I would know,
    Even as the violets their secret tell
Unto the wistful spirits of the grove--
    Ay, more than this, for, in their tender glow,
I've learned their secret, found their winsome spell,
    The sweet and simple message of their love.

How young I am!    Ah! heaven, this curse of youth
    Doth mock me from my mirror with great eyes,
And pulsing veins repeat the unwelcome truth,
    That I must live, though hope within me dies.

So young, and yet I have had all of life.
    Why, men have lived to see a hundred years,
Who have not known the rapture, joy, and strife
    Of my brief youth, its passion and its tears.

Oh! what are years?    A ripe three score and ten
    Hold often less of life, in its best sense,
Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,
    Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.

But having seen all depths and scaled all heights,
    Having a heart love thrilled, and sorrow wrung,
Knowing all pains, all pleasures, all delights,
    Now I would die -but can...