And I what I seem to my friend, you see
What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess.
What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?

No hero, I confess.

'T is an awkward thing to play with souls,
And matter enough to save one's own.
Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
He played with for bits of stone!

One likes to show the truth for the truth;
That the woman was light, is very true:
says -never mind that youth

But suppose she

What wrong have I done to you?

Well, any how, here the story stays,

So far at least as I understand;

And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
Here's a subject made to your hand!

ROBERT BROWNING.

Compliment to Queen Elizabeth.

MY gentle Puck, come hither, thou remember'st

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

That very time, I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:

THE POET'S SONG TO HIS WIFE.

But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell ;

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, —
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid

Will make a man or woman madly dote

Upon the next live creature that it sees.

Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth

In forty minutes.

63

Oberon. Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. Puck. Ay, there it is.

Oberon. I pray thee, give it me.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

The Poet's Song to his Wife.
How many summers, love,

Have I been thine?

How many days, thou dove,
Hast thou been mine?
Time, like the winged wind
When 't bends the flowers,
Hath left no mark behind,
To count the hours!

Some weight of thought, though loth,
On thee he leaves;

Some lines of care round both
Perhaps he weaves;

Some fears, a soft regret

BY

Hand in hand, in the golden days Of the beautiful early summer weather,

When skies were purple and breath was praise, When the heart kept tune to the carol of birds, And the birds kept tune to the songs which ran Through shimmer of flowers on grassy swards, And trees with voices Eolian.

By the rivers of life we walked together,
I and my darling, unafraid;

And lighter than any linnet's feather

The burdens of being on us weighed ;

AN OLD MAN'S IDYL.

And Love's sweet miracles o'er us threw
Mantles of joy outlasting time,

And up from the rosy morrows grew

A sound that seemed like a marriage chime.

In the gardens of Life we strayed together,
And the luscious apples were ripe and red,
And the languid lilac and honeyed heather
Swooned with the fragrance which they shed;
And under the trees the angel walked,
And up in the air a sense of wings
Awed us tenderly while we talked
Softly in sacred communings.

In the meadows of Life we strayed together,
Watching the waving harvests grow,

And under the benison of the Father

Our hearts, like the lambs, skipped to and fro;
And the cowslips hearing our low replies,
Broidered fairer the emerald banks,
And glad tears shone in the daisies' eyes,
And the timid violet glistened thanks.

Who was with us, and what was round us,
Neither myself nor my darling guessed;
Only we knew that something crowned us
Out from the heavens with crowns of rest;
Only we knew that something bright
Lingered lovingly where we stood,
Clothed with the incandescent light
Of something higher than humanhood.

Oh the riches love doth inherit !

Oh the alchemy which doth change Dross of body and dregs of spirit

Into sanctities rare and strange! My flesh is feeble, and dry, and old, My darling's beautiful hair is gray; But our elixir and precious gold Laugh at the footsteps of decay.

65

Harms of the world have come unto us,
Cups of sorrow we yet shall drain :
But we have a secret which doth show us,
Wonderful rainbows in the rain,

And we hear the tread of the years move by,
And the sun is setting behind the hills;

But my darling does not fear to die,
And I am happy in what God wills.

So we sit by our household fires together,
Dreaming the dreams of long ago;
Then it was balmy sunny weather,

And now the valleys are laid in snow.
Icicles hang from the slippery eaves,

The wind blows cold, - 't is growing late;
Well, well! we have garnered all our sheaves,
I and my darling, and we wait.

RICHARD REALF.

The Bloom hath fled thy Cheek, Mary.

'HE bloom hath fled thy cheek, Mary,

TH

As spring's rath blossoms die;

And sadness hath o'ershadowed now

Thy once bright eye;

But look! on me the prints of grief

Still deeper lie.

Farewell!

Thy lips are pale and mute, Mary;

Thy step is sad and slow;

The morn of gladness hath gone by

Thou erst did know;

I, too, am changed like thee, and weep

For very woe.

Farewell!