For rigorous teachers seized my youth,

And purged its faith and trimmed its fire, Showed me the high white star of Truth, There bade me gaze and there aspire.

Quand j'ai connu la Vérité,
J'ai cru que c'était une amie;
Quand je l'ai comprise et sentie
J'en étais déjà dégoûté.

Et pourtant elle est éternelle,
Et ceux qui se sont passés d'elle
Ici-bas ont tout ignoré.

The Dervish whined to Said,

'Thou didst not tarry while I prayed. Beware the fire that Eblis burned.'

But Saadi coldly thus returned,

'Once with manlike love and fear

I

gave

thee for an hour my ear,

I kept the sun and stars at bay,

And love, for words thy tongue could say.

I cannot sell my heaven again

For all that rattles in thy brain.'

I

Urania

TOO have suffered yet I know

She is not cold, though she seems so:

She is not cold, she is not light;

But our ignoble souls lack might.

She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh,
While we for hopeless passion die;
Yet she could love, those eyes declare,
Were but men nobler than they are.

Eagerly once her gracious ken Was turned upon the sons of men. But light the serious visage grew—

She looked, and smiled, and saw them through.

Our petty souls, our strutting wits,
Our laboured, puny passion-fits-
Ah, may she scorn them still, till we
Scorn them as bitterly as she!

Yet oh, that Fate would let her see
One of some worthier race than we;
One for whose sake she once might prove
How deeply she who scorns can love.

His eyes be like the starry lights

His voice like sounds of summer nights—
In all his lovely mien let pierce

The magic of the universe!

And she to him will reach her hand,
And gazing in his eyes will stand,
And know her friend, and weep for glee,
And cry-Long, long I've looked for thee.—

Then will she weep-with smiles, till then,
Coldly she mocks the sons of men.
Till then her lovely eyes maintain
Their gay, unwavering, deep disdain.

Brahma

MATTHEW Arnold.

IF

F the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near;

Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven ;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

VERITATEM DILEXI

Failure

BECAUSE God put His adamantine fate

Between my

sullen heart and its desire,

I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
But Love was as a flame about my feet ;

Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry—

All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown
Over the glassy pavement, and begun

To creep
An idle wind blew round an empty throne
And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

within the dusty council-halls.

RUPERT BROOKE.

The Divinity

YES, write it in the rock!' Saint Bernard said,

'Grave it on brass with adamantine pen!

"Tis God himself becomes apparent, when God's wisdom and God's goodness are displayed,

'For God of these his attributes is made.'-
Well spake the impetuous Saint, and bore of men
The suffrage captive; now, not one in ten
Recalls the obscure opposer he outweighed.

God's wisdom and God's goodness!--Ay, but fools Mis-define these till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness, they are God!—what schools

Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore? This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules ; 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Sursum Corda

SEEK not the spirit, if it hide

Inexorable to thy zeal :

Trembler, do not whine and chide :
Art thou not also real?

Why shouldst thou stoop to poor excuse?
Turn on the accuser roundly; say,

'Here am I, here will I abide

For ever to myself soothfast;

Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!'
Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,

For only it can absolutely deal.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

The Bohemian Hymn

IN many forms we try

To utter God's infinity,

But the Boundless hath no form,

And the Universal Friend

Doth as far transcend

An angel as a worm.