And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings; or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing-only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

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Lord Houghton retains the credit as a poet which he earned as Mr. Monckton Milnes; and characteristic of the culture of our day is the transmission of a power of song from the elder Lord Lytton to his son, a poet of mark, who first wrote under the name of Owen Meredith, but who, at the end of our quarter of a century, collects in his own name his works. One of his first successes was with an English play on the Greek model, “Clytemnestra.”

There is no prominent form of the thought of the third quarter of the nineteenth century-religious, social, or political-of which honest and musical expression cannot be found somewhere in our current English verse. But still the influence of Wordsworth quietly extends, and much writing of the better poets of the time seeks, as his did, to elevate the daily life of man, to make us feel the charm of daily sights and sounds, and gather wisdom for our use out of the book of Nature.

That modern English influence which has made William Morris seek to tell old stories, as nearly as he can, in Chaucer's manner-a desire for fresh and true life, let us hope; the best love for a worthy past is in these lines by another good poet, Aubrey de Vere:

Under the name of "Songs of Two Worlds, by a New Writer," a first, second, and third series of poems by Lewis Morris appeared within the last three or four years of the third quarter of the century. They touch the mysteries of time with faith and hope, and bring to common things of life the sympathetic insight of the poet; witness his "Ode on a Fair Spring Morning," and "The Organ Boy." One poem in the second series, called "The New Order," looks boldly on to the fulfilled hope of the nations in a future that is "not for us, who watch to-day and burn.” These are among the Songs :

They bend what shall be, to their will; And blind alike to doubt and dread, The End, for which they are, fulfil.

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Sounds at the portal, giving notice due

THE BIRTH OF VERSE.

Blind thoughts which occupy the brain, Dumb melodies which fill the ear, Dim perturbations, precious pain,

A gleam of hope, a chill of fear,—
These seize the poet's soul, and mould
The ore of fancy into gold.

And first no definite thought there is
In all that affluence of sound,
Like those sweet formless melodies

Piped to the listening woods around,
By birds which never teacher had
But love and knowledge: they are glad.

Till, when the chambers of the soul
Are filled with inarticulate airs,
A spirit comes which doth control

The music, and its end prepares;
And, with a power serene and strong,
Shapes these wild melodies to song.

Or haply, thoughts which glow and burn
Await long time the fitting strain,
Which, swiftly swelling, seems to turn
The silence to a load of pain;
And somewhat in him seems to cry,
"I will have utterance, or I die!"

Then of a sudden, full, complete,

The strong strain bursting into sound, Words come with rhythmic rush of feet, Fit music girds the language round, And with a sweetness all unsought Soars up the winged embodied thought. But howsoever they may rise,

Fit words and music come to birth; There soars an angel to the skies,

There walks a Presence on the earthA something which shall yet inspire Myriads of souls unborn with fire.

And when his voice is hushed and dumb, The flame burnt out, the glory dead,

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Of strange wayfarer, like staid seneschal,
Scans the new-comer from his niche in the wall,
And bids him welcome, or with brief adieu
Thrusts him forth on his way; alas! no more
There stands such valiant warder at the door
Of the soul's council-chamber, to deny

Entrance, save to such thoughts as, pondered o'er,
May steel the inner man to do, or die.

II.

Will makes the man; yea! they are men, that do
E'en as they will; thought lending birth to deed,
And purpose to achievement, as the seed

Is big with th' harvest: "Slowly," say'st thou, “grew
Blade, ear, and spiky cluster; slowly, too,

It ripened;" be it so: the mighty law

Of Nature's subtle process well might awe
Our curious spirits into silence, few
May read aright her marvels, fewer still
May shape themselves to her similitude,
And patient in self-consciousness stand by,
'Mid all the adverse signs of storm and sky,
Secure in that invaluable mood,

Which, daring wisely, dares but to fulfil.

He feels a thrill of wonder come

Another of the many singers of our day produced a book of verse to which he gave, by chance, the same title as that of the work just referred to. Yielding the name of "Songs of Two Worlds" to the poet who had then just come before the public, this writer changed the title of his little volume, which is now called "Songs of the Dawn and of the Day." We take from a book thus accidentally suggested, in illustration of the wide diffusion in our time of the musical expression of right earnest thought,

THREE SONNETS ON THE WILL.

I.

Will makes the man; not that fond passing mood
That men call will; of idle fancies born,
Better or worse, as either chance to intrude
Within the precincts of the breast, in scorn
Of wise self-mastery, who, when the horn

On thee, she were not Fortune, did she wear
The self-same aspect ever; up and bear
Thyself as of that hidden brotherhood,
Those slips of the true Adam, whose rank life,
Purged by Adversity's sharp pruning-knife,
Becomes prolific of immortal food.

The next poem is by Mrs. Augusta Webster :

THE GIFT.

O happy glow, O sun-bathed tree,

O golden-lighted river,

A love-gift has been given me,
And which of you is giver?

I came upon you something sad,
Musing a mournful measure,
Now all my heart in me is glad

With a quick sense of pleasure.
I came upon you with a heart

Half sick of life's vexed story, And now it grows of you a part,

Steeped in your golden glory.

A smile into my heart has crept
And laughs through all my being,
New joy into my life has leapt,
A joy of only seeing!

O happy glow, O sun-bathed tree,
O golden-lighted river,

A love-gift has been given me,

And which of you is giver?

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Surrounded by such voices of the living, and of the dead who have by some of us been known and loved, we work to-day. Here ends one section of the record of our song and talk among the furrows of the field we till. The end is yet to come;

NOT THIS THE END: still faithful song
Shall nerve the weak, direct the strong,
And help the weary feet along

A path untravelled yet.

As runs the rill from rock to mere,

As rolls the world, sphere tuned to sphere,

So has each life of labour here

Its course to music set:

And faithfully, from farthest days When Cædmon gave to God the praise, Have English hearts in English lays Still hymned the battle-song Of Duty, England's champion knight, Who, daily striving, gathers might, That shall, at last, assure the right, And overcome the wrong.

In Chaucer's verse his name was Love;
Through Gower, as Love's Priest, he strove
With all the sins, and taught and shrove
The Lover who confessed;

One called him Piers, of heavenly mind,
A Ploughman helping human kind
Its three sure earthly friends to find,—
Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best.

When Spenser sings, true, loving, just,
He turns to dew the highway dust,
Between the stones fresh blossoms thrust
Their buds where all was dry;
In sweetest Shakespeare is such art
When Duty bids him heal our smart,
That killing care and grief of heart
Are lulled, or hearing, die.

Our Milton whom the truth made free;
Our Wordsworth asking, What we see
One is, why may not millions be;

Our singers of like strain

With unlike voices and one soul,

Each with the yearning of the whole,

Who next shall press towards the goal
Ye sought, and who attain?

Glad Chaucer of the latest day,
When all who live shall love the lay
That helps them on the upward way
And discords are no more,

What Spensers, Miltons, yet to be,
What other Shakespeare, past for thee,

Shalt thou look back on ere thou see,

In ages long before,

These toilers singing through the night, These singers toiling with their might To turn the darkness into light

By cherishing that friend, Duty, whose armour lights the place Because he moves with even pace Full in the light of God's own face,

Our champion to THE END.

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40

50

Abbey Walk, Robert Henryson's, 76, 77.
Abiding Love, by Joshua Sylvester, 277
Abou ben Adhem, Leigh Hunt's, 441.
Acrostic Sonnet by Sylvester, 276.
Acrostiteliostichon, Sylvester's, 276.
Addison, Joseph, 349, 350.

Adrian, Emperor, his Lines on Death, 341, 351, 352.
Adversity, Gray's Ode to, 379.

Advice, The, by Sir Walter Raleigh, 211.

to a Courtier, Quintin Shaw's, 128, 129.

Ella, Chatterton's Song to, 390, 391.

Age, Old, Beauty of, "To Agnes," by James Montgomery, 440
"Ah, Robin! jolly Robin," Sir Thomas Wyatt's, 154.
Akenside, Mark, 382, 383.

Alcæus, Sir William Jones's Ode in Imitation of, 398.
Alexander's Feast, by John Dryden, 331-333.

"All things are as they are used," by George Turbervile, 201.
Allegro, Milton's, 310-312.

Allingham, William, 487.

Althea, Richard Lovela e from Prison to, 314, 315.

"A man's a man for a' that," by Robert Burns, 409.

Amoret, Edmund Waller to, 301, 302.

Andrea del Sarto, by Robert Browning, 469-471.
Aneurin, 5-8.

Anna Matilda to Della Crusca, 412.

Anti-Jacobin, Poetry of the, 428-434.

Apocalypse of Golias, Walter Map's, 12-16.

Apparel, John Bunyan upon, 341.

Apple pie, by William King, 372, 373.

Arab to his Mistress, by Walter Savage Landor, 463.

Ariel's Song, by William Shakespeare, 252.
Arnold, Matthew, 486.

Art of Cookery, by William King, 372.

Preaching, by Christopher Pitt, 371, 372.

"As it fell upon a day," by Richard Barnfield, 261.
Astrea, Hymn to, by Sir John Davies, 259, 260.

Astrophel and Stella, Sonnets by Sir Philip Sidney, 215-217
Athol Cummers, by James Hogg, 456, 457.
Auchtermuchty, The Wife of, 265-267.

Auld Robin Gray, by Lady Anne Barnard, 416, 417.

Authority, The Slaves and Darlings of, by Fulke Greville, 225.
Avisa, Henry Willobie to, 244.

B.

Bachelor's Song, by Thomas Flatman, 341.
Bacon, Francis, Poem on Life by, 274.

Baillie, Joanna, 475, 476.

Bait, The, by John Donne, 275.
Baldwin, William, 177, 182.

Ballad, A Border, by Walter Scott, 438.

A Pastoral, by William Shenstone, 373-375.

A Serious, by Alexander Brome, 317.

[Chevy-Chase and other ballads will be found under
their several titles.]

Ballets, Thomas Morley's First Book of, 245.

Barnard, Lady Anne, 416, 417.

Barnfield, Richard, 261.

Basset, A Song of, by Sir George Etherege, 337.

Bastille, William Cowper on the, 399; William Wordsworth
on the, 418.

Battle of Naseby, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 461.
Baucis and Philemon, by Jonathan Swift, 353-355.

Baviad, William Gifford's, 413-416.

Beaumont, Francis, 272, 273.

Beauty, True, A Sonnet on, by Edmund Spenser, 230.
Behn, Aphra, 339.

"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," Song by

Thomas Moore, 455.

Berlin, 1871, by Lewis Morris, 488.

Bermudas, by Andrew Marvell, 319.

Best Thing in the World, The, by Mrs. Browning, 471.

Bicorn and Chichevache, John Lydgate's, 54-56.

Birth of Verse, The, by Lewis Morris, 489.

Blank Verse, by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 159.
Blindness, John Milton on his, 330.

Bloomfield, Robert, 438, 439.

Border Ballad, by Walter Scott, 438.

Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich, the, by Arthur Hugh Clough, Pas-

sage from, 478.

Boucher, A., 169.

Bowles, William Lisle, 410, 411.

Braid Cloth, by Robert Fergusson, 392.

Breton, Nicholas, 243, 244.

British Album, Verse-writing of the, 411, 412.

Broken Charm, The, by Joshua Sylvester, 276.
Brome, Alexander, 316, 317.

Brooke, Fulke Greville, Lord, 220-226.
Broome, William, 371.

Browne, William, 268; 287, 288.
Browning, Robert, 467-471.

Elizabeth Barrett, 471-473; 488.

Brownrigg, Mrs., Inscription for the Door of her Cell, by
George Canning, J. H. Frere, and George Ellis, 430.
Brutus, Abraham Cowley's Ode to, 309; John Sheffield, Duke
of Buckingham's, 328, 329.