Happy-he knew not whence or how,

And smiling,-who could choose but love him? For not more glad than Childhood's brow,

Was the blue heaven that beamed above him.

Old Time, in most appalling wrath,
That valley's green repose invaded;
The brooks grew dry upon his path,

The birds were mute, the lilies faded.
But Time so swiftly winged his flight,
In haste a Grecian tomb to batter,
That Childhood watched his paper kite,
And knew just nothing of the matter.
With curling lip and glancing eye
Guilt gazed upon the scene a minute;
But Childhood's glance of purity
Had such a holy spell within it,
That the dark demon to the air
Spread forth again his baffled pinion,
And hid his envy and despair,

Self-tortured, in his own dominion.

Then stepped a gloomy phantom up,

Pale, cypress-crowned, Night's awful daughter,

And proferred him a fearful cup

Full to the brim of bitter water:

Poor Childhood bade her tell her name;
And when the beldame muttered-Sorrow,'

He said, 'Don't interrupt my game;

I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow.'

The Muse of Pindus1 thither came,

And wooed him with the softest numbers
That ever scattered wealth or fame

Upon a youthful poet's slumbers:
Though sweet the music of the lay,

To Childhood it was all a riddle,
And 'Oh,' he cried, 'do send away

That noisy woman with the fiddle!'

1 Muse of Pindus-Erato, the muse of lyric poetry, usually represented with a lute. Pindus, a mountain range in Thessaly, sacred to the Muses and to Apollo.

Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball,

And taught him, with most sage endeavour,
Why bubbles rise and acorns fall,

And why no toy may last for ever.
She talked of all the wondrous laws
Which Nature's open book discloses,
And Childhood, ere she made a pause,
Was fast asleep among the roses.

Sleep on, sleep on! Oh! Manhood's dreams
Are all of earthly pain or pleasure,
Of Glory's toils, Ambition's schemes,

Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure:
But to the couch where Childhood lies
A more delicious trance is given,

Lit up by rays from seraph eyes,

And glimpses of remembered Heaven!1

Winthrop Mackworth Praed: 1802-1839.

Most of Praed's work in poetry was contributed to magazines, and belong to that light fashionable class now known as vers de société. It is polished in diction, and characterized by graceful humour and playful philosophy. Praed was born in London, and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was, at different periods of his life, a private tutor at Eton, a lawyer, a member of Parliament, and for a short time Secretary of the Board of Control.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

(Written for a Picture.)

I LOVE to look on a scene like this,
Of wild and careless play,

And persuade myself that I am not old,

And my locks are not yet gray;

For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,

And makes his pulses fly,

To catch the thrill of a happy voice,

And the light of a pleasant eye.

1 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy' (see page 50),

I have walk'd the world for fourscore years ;
And they say that I am old,

That my heart is ripe for the reaper, Death,
And my years are well-nigh told.
It is very true; it is very true;

I'm old, and 'I 'bide my time :'
But my heart will leap at a scene like this,
And I half renew my prime.

Play on, play on; I am with you there,
In the midst of your merry ring;
I can feel the thrill of the daring jump,
And the rush of the breathless swing.
I hide with you in the fragrant hay,
And I whoop the smother'd call,
And my feet slip up on the seedy floor,
And I care not for the fall.

I am willing to die when my time shall come,
And I shall be glad to go;

For the world at best is a weary place,
And my pulse is getting low;

But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail
In treading its gloomy way;

And it wiles my heart from its dreariness,

To see the young so gay.

Nathaniel Parker Willis: 1806-1867.

(See page 45.)

THE HAUNTED SPRING.

GAILY through the mountain glen
The hunter's horn did ring,
As the milk-white doe
Escaped his bow,

Down by the haunted spring.
In vain his silver horn he wound,-
'Twas echo answer'd back;

For neither groom nor baying hound
Were on the hunter's track;

In vain he sought the milk-white doe
That made him stray, and 'scaped his bow,
For, save himself, no living thing
Was by the silent haunted spring.

The purple heathbells, blooming fair,
Their fragrance round did fling,
As the hunter lay
At close of day,

Down by the haunted spring.
A lady fair in robe of white,
To greet the hunter came;
She kiss'd a cup with jewels bright,
And pledged him by his name ;
'Oh, lady fair," the hunter cried,
'Be thou my love, my blooming bride,-
A bride that well might grace a king!
Fair lady of the haunted spring.'

In the fountain clear she stoop'd,
And forth she drew a ring;
And that loved knight
His faith did plight

Down by the haunted spring.
But since that day his chase did stray,
The hunter ne'er was seen,

And legends tell, he now doth dwell
Within the hills so green;

But still the milk-white doe appears,
And wakes the peasants' evening fears,
While distant bugles faintly ring
Around the lonely haunted spring.

Samuel Lover: 1798-1868.

Samuel Lover was a native of Dublin, a novelist, and a poet. He was the author of Handy Andy, and Rory O'More. His verse is full of fine flowing melody, and readily lends itself to music, so that he is principally known as a song-writer.

FORM.

A MAN walks through a wood,
Admiring what he sees there :
How blessed if he could

Admire, and be at ease there!

But ah! his admiration he must utilize, or doubt of it.
So he lops off a branch, resolved to fashion something
out of it.

As though the thing were not
Already, ere he take it,

A something more than what

His utmost means can make it!

He knows not what he wants to make

shall gainsay?

this only who

Something he MUST make out of it, since man's à maker,

men say.

He chisels, chips, and chops,

And carves as he is able:
Now plans a chair, now stops
And meditates a table.

At length, grown somewhat weary, in the midst of all his toils, it

Strikes him that the more he chips and chops, the more he spoils it.

He pauses; wipes the sweat,

Discouraged, from his forehead;
Casts down his eyes; and yet

The failure seems more horrid.

But lo you! in his workshop, having sidled through the door there,

A little child is playing with the shavings on the floor there.

And, as they fall self-roll'd,

Each wooden ringlet nearing
The child hath made, behold!
Of each a pretty earring.

Friend, that child, to finest uses fitting chances, must

appal you,

Turning accident to ornament,—your rubbish to his value.