So we mend God's making,

And so mar it for the most part :
So chance-comers, taking

From the dust what seem'd the lost part

Of our labour, suffer Fancy to sport with it and the

Muses,

That neglected our endeavour, turn its failure to her uses. Robert, Lord Lytton: born, 1831. (See page 24.)

ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL.

'Love, sterling on earth, is current in heaven.'—R. P. S.
ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold :-
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,

'What writest thou?'-The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answer'd The names of those who love the Lord.'
'And is mine one?' said Abou. Nay, not so,'
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, 'I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.'

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Leigh Hunt: 1784-1859.

James Henry Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, and educated at Christ's Hospital. He was an essayist and poet. His literary work is graceful and pleasing,-not profound. In 1808 Hunt was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for a newspaper pasquinade on the Prince-Regent. But liberty to follow his own fancies was allowed him to an extent that made his captivity pretty comfortable; and in 1847 the Crown bestowed a pension upon him.

THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE.

'LOVE seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,

And builds a heaven in hell's despair.'

So sung a little clod of clay,

Trodden with the cattle's feet:
But a pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet

'Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another's loss of ease,

And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'

William Blake.

This poem presents two views of love. Love unselfish and sincere, deriving happiness from its own devotion and services to the object beloved, satisfied with poor return, and often meeting with the neglect to which the very meekness of its self-sacrifice renders it liable. . . and Love regarded only as a phase of selfishness, jealous and assuming, always unhappy because always unsatisfied, though every concession be made to its unreasonable exactions.

THE POET'S AWAKENING.

LONG had he been a thing of common clay,
A being of earthly mould;

But, lo! an angel crossed his path one day,
And turned the clay to gold.

Silent was he: the angel came again,

And as she passed along,

She kissed his lips all lovingly, and then
He opened them in song.

George Arnold: 1834-1865.

(See also page 68.) An American editor and poet, author of the Mc Arone Papers. He has written many fugitive pieces, and some of his poems are of remarkable sweetness. He served with honour in the Union Army during the American Civil War,

THE HAUNTED PALACE.

[This fine allegory is little understood by general readers. It pictures the devastation that follows upon the loss of reason.]

1. IN the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace,
Radiant palace, reared its head.
In the Monarch Thought's dominion,
It stood there :

2.

3.

Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners-yellow, glorious, golden,-
On its roof did float and flow
(This, all this, was in the olden
Time, long ago);

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically,

To a lute's well-tuned law,

Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene)

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

1 Radiant palace-the human countenance.

2 Banners-waving locks of hair ramparts plumed-the forehead swept by the hair: dallied-played: pallid-fair, pale.

3 windows-the eyes: spirits-sweet thoughts and fancies : To a lute's well-tuned law-in harmonious obedience to Intellect, the ruler of the realm: Porphyrogene-Porphyry is a kind of granite, and the epithet porphyrogene, applied to throne, is intended to describe the former apparent security of the seat of reason.

4.

5.

6.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace-door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate,
(Ah, let us mourn !-for never norrow
Shall dawn upon him-desolate !)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out for ever,

And laugh-but smile no more.

Edgar Allan Poe: 1809-1849.

An American poet, adopted early in life, and educated by Mr. Allan, a Virginian planter. Edgar Poe's life was made a failure by his recklessness and dissipation. He died in a hospital at Baltimore, a victim to intemperance. Poe was a writer of remarkable genius: his Tales of Mystery and Imagination are well-known: his critical work is much admired. In poetry he is best known as the author of The Raven, and The Bells. His poems are melodious, but often morbid and gloomy in feeling.

pearl, the teeth ruby, the lips: palace-door-the mouth: echoes-speech: their king-the intellect: ruby—a precious stone of fine red colour. 5 evil things-troubles.

6 vast forms-the expressions of vague fear, rage, and horror seen in the eyes of mad persons: fantastically-capriciously: discordant melody-thoughts without sequence or dependence on on each other: pale door-blanched lips: hideous throng-the incoherent and appalling utterances, and dreadful laughter of insanity discordant-out of tune.

1

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,1
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,2
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

4

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;

And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,

And notched the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river.

'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan, (Laughed while he sat by the river,)

'The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

1 Fan-the god of shepherds and of rural life, fabled to be the inventor of the seven-reeded flute called Syrinx by the ancients, (the original of pan-pipes). Pan was represented with horns on the head, and with the legs, feet, and tail of a goat. limpid-clear,

2 ban-blight or death.

4 turbidly--thickly, muddily.

3