YE MEANER BEAUTIES.

YE meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes,

More by your numbers than your light:
Ye common people of the skies!
What are you when the moon shall rise?

Ye violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the Spring were all your own!
What are you when the rose is blown?

Ye curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your passions understood

By your weak accents!-what's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise ?

So when my mistress shall be seen

In sweetness of her looks and mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a queen:
Tell me, if she was not designed
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind ?

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

WIND AND RAIN.

RATTLE the window, Winds!
Rain, drip on the panes !

There are tears and sighs in our hearts and eyes,
And a weary weight on our brains.

The gray sea heaves and heaves,
On the dreary flats of sand;

And the blasted limb of the churchyard yew,
It shakes like a ghostly hand!

The dead are engulfed beneath it,

Sunk in the grassy waves;

But we have more dead in our hearts to-day

Than the Earth in all her graves!

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

A HEALTH.

I FILL this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone:

A woman of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'Tis less of Earth than Heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds;
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words:
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,
The idol of past years.

ABSENCE.

On her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts

A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,

When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

Her health and would on earth there stood

Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

EDWARD COATE PINKNEY.

ABSENCE.

WHAT shall I do with all the days and hours
That must be counted ere I see thy face?

How shall I charm the interval that lowers
Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense,
Weary with longing? Shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
Cheat myself to forget the present day?

ABSENCE.

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin
Of casting from me God's great gift of time?
Shall I, these mists of memory locked within,
Leave and forget life's purposes sublime?

O! how, or by what means, may I contrive

To bring the hour that brings thee back more near?

How may I teach my drooping hope to live
Until that blessed time, and thou art here?

I'll tell thee: for thy sake I will lay hold
Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee,
In worthy deeds, each moment that is told,
While thou, beloved one, art far from me.

For thee I will arouse my thoughts, to try

All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains; For thy dear sake I will walk patiently

Through these long hours, nor call their minutes pains.

I will this dreary blank of absence make
A noble task-time; and will therein strive

To follow excellence, and to o'ertake

More good than I have won since yet I live.

So may this doomed time build up in me

A thousand graces, which shall thus be thine!
So may my love and longing hallowed be,
And thy dear thought an influence divine!

FRANCES KEMBLE BUTLER.