So on the sea of life, alas!

Let the long contention cease!

I knew it when my life was young,
I feel it still, now youth is o'er!
The mists are on the mountain hung,
And Marguerite I shall see no more.

URANIA.

SHE smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, While we for hopeless passion die; Yet she could love, those eyes declare, Were but men nobler than they are.

Eagerly once her gracious ken Was turned upon the sons of men ; But light the serious visage grew, She looked, and smiled, and saw them through.

Our petty souls, our strutting wits, Our labored puny passion-fits, Ah, may she scorn them still, till we Scorn them as bitterly as she!

Yet O, that Fate would let her see One of some worthier race than we, One for whose sake she once might prove How deeply she who scorns can love.

His eyes be like the starry lights,
His voice like sounds of summer nights,
In all his lovely mien let pierce
The magic of the universe!

And she to him will reach her hand,
And gazing in his eyes will stand,
And know her friend, and weep for glee!
And cry, Long, long I've looked for thee!

Then will she weep, with smiles, till then,

Coldly she mocks the sons of men.
Till then her lovely eyes maintain
Their gay, unwavering, deep disdain.

THE LAST WORD.

CREEP into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast; Thou thyself must break at last.

Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still!

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee.

Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged, and broke at last.

Let the victors, when they come,
Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall.

ROBERT LORD LYTTON.

THE ARTIST.

O ARTIST, range not over-wide:
Lest what thou seek be haply hid
In bramble-blossoms at thy side,
Or shut within the daisy-lid.
God's glory lies not out of reach.

The moss we crush beneath our feet,
The pebbles on the wet sea-beach,
Have solemn meanings strange and

sweet.

The peasant at his cottage door
May teach thee more than Plato knew;
See that thou scorn him not: adore
God in him, and thy nature too.

Know well thy friends. The woodbine's breath,

The woolly tendril on the vine, Are more to thee than Cato's death,

Or Cicero's words to Catiline.

The wild rose is thy next in blood:

Share Nature with her, and thy heart. The kingcups are thy sisterhood: Consult them duly on thine art. The Genius on thy daily ways

Shall meet, and take thee by the hand: But serve him not as who obeys: He is thy slave if thou command:

And blossoms on the blackberry-stalks He shall enchant as thou dost pass,

267

I am as rich as others are,
And help the whole as well as you.

This wild white rosebud in my hand

Hath meanings meant for me alone, Which no one else can understand: To you it breathes with altered tone: We go to Nature, not as lords,

But servants; and she treats us thus: Speaks to us with indifferent words, And from a distance looks at us. Let us go boldly, as we ought,

And say to her, "We are a part Of that supreme original Thought Which did conceive thee what thou art "We will not have this lofty look:

Thou shalt fall down, and recognize Thy kings: we will write in thy book; Command thee with our eyes."

She hath usurpt us. She should be

Our model; but we have become Her miniature-painters. So when we Entreat her softly, she is dumb.

Nor serve the subject overmuch:

Nor rhythm and rhyme, nor color and form.

Know Truth hath all great graces, such
As shall with these thy work inform.

We ransack History's tattered page :
We prate of epoch and costume:
Call this, and that, the Classic Age:
Choose tunic now, now helm and plume:

But while we halt in weak debate

'Twixt that and this appropriate theme, The offended wild-flowers stare and wait, The bird hoots at us from the stream.

Next, as to laws. What's beautiful
We recognize in form and face:
And judge it thus, and thus, by rule,
As perfect law brings perfect grace:

If through the effect we drag the cause,
Dissect, divide, anatomize,
Results are lost in loathsome laws,

And all the ancient beauty dies:

Till we, instead of bloom and light,

See only sinews, nerves, and veins; Nor will the effect and cause unite, For one is lost if one remains:

"But the shore is dark, and the sea is wild, And, dearest father, we still must wait.'

She hastened to her inner room, And silently mused there alone; "Three springs have come, three winters gone,

And still we wait from hour to hour; But earth waits long for her harvest-time, And the aloe, in the northern clime,

Waits an hundred years for its flower.

"Under the apple-boughs as I sit In May-time, when the robin's song Thrills the odorous winds along,

The innermost heaven seems to ope; I think, though the old joys pass from sight,

Still something is left for hearts' delight, For life is endless, and so is hope.

"If the aloe waits an hundred years, And God's times are so long indeed For simple things, as flower and weed,

That gather only the light and gloom, For what great treasures of joy and dole, Of life and death, perchance, must the soul,

Ere it flower in heavenly peace, find

room?

Still Bertha waited on the cliff, To catch the gleam of a coming sail, And the distant whisper of the gale, Winging the unforgotten home; And hope at her yearning heart would knock,

When a sunbeam on a far-off rock

Married a wreath of wandering foam.

Was it well? you ask—(nay, was it ill?)Who sat last year by the old man's hearth; The sun had passed below the earth,

And the first star locked its western gate, When Bertha entered his darkening home, And smiling said, "He does not come,

But, dearest father, we still can wait!"

J. H. PERKINS.

[U. S. A.]

THE UPRIGHT SOUL

269

LATE to our town there came a maid, A noble woman, true and pure, Who, in the little while she stayed, Wrought works that shall endure.

It was not anything she said,

It was not anything she did: It was the movement of her head, The lifting of her lid.

Her little motions when she spoke,

The presence of an upright soul, The living light that from her broke, It was the perfect whole :

We saw it in her floating hair,

We saw it in her laughing eye; For every look and feature there Wrought works that cannot die.

For she to many spirits gave

A reverence for the true, the pure, The perfect, that has power to save, And make the doubting sure.

She passed, she went to other lands,

She knew not of the work she did; The wondrous product of her hands

From her is ever hid.

Forever, did I say? O, no!

The time must come when she will look Upon her pilgrimage below,

And find it in God's book,

| That, as she trod her path aright,
Power from her very garments stole;
For such is the mysterious might
God grants the upright soul.

A deed, a word, our careless rest,
A simple thought, a common feeling,
If He be present in the breast,

Has from him powers of healing.

Go, maiden, with thy golden tresses,
Thine azure eye and changing cheek,
Go, and forget the one who blesses
Thy presence through the week.

Forget him: he will not forget,

But strive to live and testify

But gin ye lo'ed me as I lo❜e you, I wad ring my ain deid knell;

And Time itself rolled by.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

O LASSIE AYONT THE HILL!

O LASSIE ayont the hill!
Come ower the tap o' the hill,
Or roun' the neuk o' the hill,
For I want ye sair the nicht,
I'm needin' ye sair the nicht,
For I'm tired and sick o' mysel',
A body's sel''s the sairest weicht, —
O lassie, come ower the hill!

Gin a body could be a thocht o' grace, And no a sel' ava!

I'm sick o' my heid, and my han's and my face,

An' my thochts and mysel' and a';
I'm sick o' the warl' and a';
The licht gangs by wi' a hiss;
For thro' my een the sunbeams fa',
But my weary heart they miss.
O lassie ayont the hill!
Come ower the tap o' the hill,
Or roun' the neuk o' the hill;
Bidena ayont the hill!

For gin ance I saw yer bonnie heid,
And the sunlicht o' yer hair,

The ghaist o' mysel' wad fa' doun deid;
I wad be mysel' nae mair.

I wad be mysel' nae mair.
Filled o' the sole remeid;

Slain by the arrows o' licht frae yer hair.
Killed by yer body and heid.

O lassie ayont the hill, etc.

But gin ye lo'ed me ever sae sma',
For the sake o' my bonnie dame,
Whan I cam' to life, as she gaed awa',
I could bide my body and name,

I micht bide by mysel' the weary same;
Aye setting up its heid

Till I turn frae the claes that cover my frame,

As gin they war roun' the deid.

O lassie ayont the hill, etc.

through

Wi' the shine o' yer sunny sel',

By the licht aneath yer broo,
I wad dee to mysel', and ring my bell,
And only live in you.