“Let one more attest,

“I have lived, seen God's hand thro' that life-time, “And all was for best. . .”

Then they sung thro' their tears, in strong triumph, Not much,—but the rest!

And thy brothers-the help and the contest,

The working whence grew

Such result, as from seething grape-bundles

The spirit so true:

And the friends of thy boyhood-that boyhood

With wonder and hope,

Present promise, and wealth in the future,—

The eye's eagle scope,

Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch,

A people is thine!

Oh all gifts the world offers singly,

On one head combine,

On one head the joy and the pride,

Even rage like the throe

That opes the rock, helps its glad labour,

And lets the gold go—

And ambition that sees a sun lead it—

Oh, all of these—all

Combine to unite in one creature

-Saul!

END OF PART THE FIRST.

TIME'S REVENGES.

I'VE a Friend, over the sea ;
I like him, but he loves me;

It all grew out of the books I write ;
They find such favour in his sight
That he slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don't admire my books:

He does himself though,—and if some vein
Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,

Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor place,

And make me broth, and wash my face, And light my fire, and, all the while, Bear with his old good-humoured smile That I told him "Better have kept away "Than come and kill me, night and day, "With worse than fever's throbs and shoots, "At the creaking of his clumsy boots." I am as sure that this he would do, As that Saint Paul's is striking Two: And I think I had rather .. woe is me! -Yes, rather see him than not see,

If lifting a hand would seat him there
Before me in the empty chair

To-night, when my head aches indeed,
And I can neither think, nor read,
And these blue fingers will not hold
The pen; this garret 's freezing cold!

And I've a Lady-There he wakes,
The laughing fiend and prince of snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in the way
Of my love for her, to be down-torn,
Upthrust and onward borne

So I might prove myself that sea

Of passion which I needs must be !

Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint,
And my style infirm, and its figures faint,
All the critics say, and more blame yet,
And not one angry word you get!
But, please you, wonder I would put

My cheek beneath that Lady's foot
Rather than trample under mine
The laurels of the Florentine,

And you shall see how the Devil spends

A fire God gave for other ends!

I tell you, I stride up and down

This garret, crowned with love's best crown,

And feasted with love's perfect feast,

To think I kill for her, at least,

Body and soul and peace and fame,

Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,
-So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips and little chin, the stir

Of shadow round her mouth; and she
-I'll tell you, calmly would decree
That I should roast at a slow fire,
If that would compass her desire
And make her one whom they invite
To the famous ball to-morrow night.

There may be Heaven; there must be Hell; Meantime, there is our Earth here-well!

THE GLOVE.

(PETER RONSARD loquitur.)

" HEIGHO," yawned one day King Francis, "Distance all value enhances !

"When a man 's busy, why, leisure "Strikes him as wonderful pleasure,— "'Faith, and at leisure once is he? "Straightway he wants to be busy. "Here we 've got peace; and aghast I'm

"Is there a reason in metre?

"Give us your speech, master Peter!"
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er am at loss with my Naso,

"Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets :

"Men are the merest Ixions "

Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's

66

Heigho.. go look at our lions!"

Such are the sorrowful chances

If you talk fine to King Francis.

And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
Increased by new followers tenfold
Before he arrived at the penfold;
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen
At sunset the western horizon.

And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost
With the dame he professed to adore most—
Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed

Her, and the horrible pitside;

For the penfold surrounded a hollow

Which led where the eye scarce dared follow,
And shelved to the chamber secluded
Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.
The King hailed his keeper, an Arab
As glossy and black as a scarab,

And bade him make sport and at once stir
Up and out of his den the old monster.