APLESS doom of woman happy in betrothing!
Beauty passes in a breath and love is lost

in loathing:

Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say
the world is nothing—
Low, lute, low !

Love will hover round the flowers when they first

awaken ;

Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken; Low, my lute! Oh, low my lute! we fade and are

forsaken

Low, dear lute, low!

ALFRED TENNYSON.

BEFORE PARTING.

MONTH or twain to live on honeycomb
Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time,
Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,

And that strong purple under juice and foam

Where the wine's heart has burst;

Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.

Once yet, this poor one time, I will not pray
Even to change the bitterness of it,

The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,

To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay,
All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise
Over my face and eyes.

And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheat
Makes of its foolish poppies' mouths of red?
These were not sown, these are not harvested,
They grow a month and are cast under feet,
And none has care thereof,

As none has care of a divided love.

I know each shadow of your lips by rote,
Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows,
The fashion of fair temples tremulous

With tender blood, and colour of your throat;
I know not how Love is gone out of this,
Seeing that all was his.

Love's likeness there endures upon all these,
But out of these one shall not gather love.

Day hath not strength, nor the night shade enough
To make Love whole, and fill his lips with ease,
As some bee-builded cell

Feels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.

I know not how this last month leaves your hair
Less full of purple colour and hid spice,
And that luxurious tremble of closed eyes

Is mixed with meaner shadow and waste care:
And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet
Worth patience to regret.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

XIII.

PARTING AT MORNING.

OUND the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.

ROBERT BROWNING.

A FAREWELL.

ITH all my will, but much against my

heart,

We two now part.

My Very Dear,

Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.

It needs no art,

With faint, averted feet

And many a tear,

In our opposed paths to persevere.

Go thou to East, I West.

We will not say

There's any hope, it is so far away.

But, O my Best,

When the one darling of our widowhood,

The nursling Grief,

Is dead,

And no dews blur our eyes

To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,

Perchance we may,

Where now this night is day,