"TO ONE WHO HAS BEEN LONG IN CITY PENT, 'TIS VERY SWEET TO LOOK INTO THE FAIR-JOHN KEATS)

* The moral of these verses we take to be, that we cannot always look for the fulfilment of our dearest wishes, but though the disappointment breed great sorrow in our hearts, yet will it assuredly work out some wise and beneficent end.

THE READING OF AN EVER-CHANGING TALE."-KEATS.

AND OPEN FACE OF HEAVEN; TO BREATHE A PRAYER FULL IN THE SMILE of the BLUE FIRMAMENT."—KEATS.

SWEET ARE THE PLEASURES THAT TO VERSE BELONG."-KEATS.

[ELIZABETH D. CROSS (MRS. BULLOCK), author of "An Old Story, and Other Poems," published in 1868.]

"STILL DOTH THE SOUL, FROM ITS LONE FASTNESS HIGH, UPON OUR LIFE A RULING EFFLUENCE SEND;-(ARNOLD)

AND WHEN IT FAILS, FIGHT AS WE WILL, WE DIE; AND WHILE IT LASTS, WE CANNOT WHOLLY END."-M. ARNOLD.

A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT.

HIS is Moorish land,

Where Allah lives unconquered in dark breasts,
And blesses still the many-nourishing earth
With dark-armed industry. See from the steep
The scattered olives hurry in gray throngs
Down towards the valley, where the little stream
Parts a green hollow 'twixt the gentler slopes;
And in that hollow, dwellings: not white homes
Of building Moors, but little swarthy tents
Such as of old perhaps on Asian plains,
Or wending westward past the Caucasus,
Our fathers raised to rest in. Close they swarm
About two taller tents, and viewed afar

MIND IS THE SPELL WHICH GOVERNS EARTH AND HEAVEN. -ARNOLD.

"THUS YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, TO-MORROW COME, THEY BUSTLE ONE ANOTHER, AND THEY PASS;

BUT TRUE IT IS, ABOVE ALL LAW AND FATE

334

*

A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT.

Might seem a dark-robed crowd in penitence
That silent kneel; but come now in their midst
And watch a busy, bright-eyed, sportive life!
Tall maidens bend to feed the tethered goat,
The ragged kirtle fringing at the knee

Above the living curves, the shoulder's smoothness
Parting the torrent strong of ebon hair.

Women with babes, the wild and neutral glance

Swayed now to sweet desire of mothers' eyes,

Rock their strong cradling arms and chant low strains

Taught by monotonous and soothing winds
That fall at night-time on the dozing ear.

The crones plait reeds, or shred the vivid herbs
Into the caldron: tiny urchins crawl,

Or sit and gurgle forth their infant joy.
Lads lying sphynx-like with uplifted breast
Propped on their elbows, their black manes tossed
Fling up the coin and watch its fatal fall,
Dispute and scramble, run and wrestle fierce,
Then fall to play and fellowship again;
Or in a thieving swarm they run to plague
The grandsires, who return with rabbits slung,
And with the mules fruit-laden from the fields.
Some striplings choose the smooth stones from
brook*

To serve the slingers, cut the twigs for snares,
Or trim the hazel wands, or at the bark
Of some exploring dog they dart away
With swift precision towards a moving speck.
These are the brood of Zarca's Gypsy tribe;
Most like an earth-born race bred by the Sun
On some rich tropic soil, the father's light

back,

the

"And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook" (1 Sam. xvii. 40).

IS FAITH, ABIDING THE APPOINTED DAY.". -H. COLERIDGE.

BUT ALL OUR BUSTLING MORROWS ONLY MAKE THE SMOOTH TO-DAY OF God."-matthew ARNOLD.

"HOPE IS OUR LIFE, WHEN FIRST OUR LIFE GROWS CLEAR;

A SONG OF APRIL.

Flashing in coal-black eyes, the mother's blood

With bounteous elements feeding their young limbs.

335

[This vigorous piece of word-painting occurs in "The Spanish Gypsy," a poem of remarkable power and beauty, by which GEORGE ELIOT—or, rather, Miss EVANS-has shown herself possessed of abilities as a poet, equal to those she had already displayed as a novelist. Miss Evans was born about 1820. Her first work, "Scenes of Clerical Life," appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. Her later novels are "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Romola," and "Felix Holt the Radical."]

"CALM IS THE SKY WITH HARMLESS CLOUDS BESET, NO THOUGHT OF STORM THE MORNING VEXES YET."-MORRIS.

A SONG OF APRIL.

FAIR mid-spring, besung so oft and oft,
How can I praise thy loveliness enow?

Thy sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft
That o'er the blossoms of the orchard blow,

The thousand things that 'neath the young leaves grow,
The hopes and chances of the growing year,
Winter forgotten long, and summer near.

When Summer brings the lily and the rose,
She brings us fear: her very death she brings

Hid in her anxious heart, the forge of woes;
And, dull with fear, no more the mavis sings.
But thou! thou diest not, but thy fresh life clings
About the fainting Autumn's sweet decay,
When in the earth the hopeful seed they lay.

Ah, life of all the year, why yet do I,
Amid thy snowy blossoms' fragrant drift,
Still long for that which never draweth nigh,

HOPE AND DELIGHT, SCARCE CROSSED BY LINES OF FEAR.'

"

-MORRIS.

"A LIFE ENDURING, WITHOUT CARE OR PAIN, OR ANY MAN TO MAKE THEIR WISHES VAIN."-WILLIAM 'MORRIS.

336

66 IS THERE NO BRIGHT REVERSION IN THE SKY,

SONNETS.

Striving my pleasure from my pain to sift,
Some weight from off my fluttering mirth to lift;
-Now, when far bells are ringing, "Come again,
Come back, past years! why will ye pass in vain ?

[WILLIAM MORRIS, a poet of great and increasing reputation, author of "The Defence of Queen Guenevere," "The Life and Death of Jason," and "The Earthly Paradise." From the latter we have borrowed the foregoing beautiful stanzas.]

"LIKE DRIFTWOOD SPARS WHICH MEET AND PASS UPON THE BOUNDLESS OCEAN-PLAIN,

SO ON THE SEA OF LIFE, ALAS! MAN NEARS MAN, meets, and leaves again."-M. ARNOLD.

A SCORE OF SONNETS.

firm

Сара

[The Sonnet, although originally borrowed from Italy, has taken root in English ground; and being successively cultivated by our greatest poets, has developed admirable flower and fruit. Though somewhat rigid in form, consisting always of fourteen lines, it shows a remarkable bility of adapting itself to the genius of the artist making use of it; and the reader will observe the wide difference in music and character of the speci mens which follow, notwithstanding an apparent similarity of structure. In the hands of a master, it is a peculiarly graceful and fascinating instrument; and the melody educed from it may be, at will, stirring as the sound of a trumpet, or sweet and soothing as the strain of a lute.]

I. THE LOVELINESS OF TRUTH.

H, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their maskèd buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwooed, and unrespected fade ;

* The wild, or dog-rose, is the plant to which Shakspeare here alludes

FOR THOSE WHO GREATLY THINK, OR BRAVELY DIE?"-POPE.