H PARIS A MACON. SAW, I saw the lovely child, I learnt her gestures sweet and wild, Her name?—I heard not, nay, nor care, Enough it was for me To find her innocently fair And delicately free. Oh cease and go ere dreams be done, Nor trace the angel's birth, Nor find the paradisal one A blossom of the earth! Thus it is with our subtlest joys,— It comes unbidden, comes unbought, His swiftest and his sweetest thought Can never poet say. FREDERICK MYERS. UNREFLECTING CHILDHOOD. T is, indeed, a little while Since you were born, my happy pet; Your future beckons with a smile, Your bygones don't exist as yet. Is all the world with beauty rife? The ocean, and the waning moons, And banter, and domestic mirth,— And poet friends, and poesy, And precious books, for any mood: And then that best of company, Those graver thoughts in solitude That hold us fast and never pall: Then there is You, my own, my fair-And I . . . soon I must leave it all, And much you care. FREDERICK LOCKER, NATURE REPARATRICI. RAY cloud, gray veil 'twixt me and youth In vain the veil to silver melts, To chase them o'er the meadow. Yet nature holds a gracious hand, And spreads the charms we loved of old, Here her long crests of fringed crag Allure the sky-ward swallows; Here the still dove's low love-note floats |