USH off the boat,

Quit, quit the shore,

The stars will guide us back: -

O gathering cloud,

O wide, wide sea,

O waves that keep no track!

On through the pines!

The pillared woods,

Where silence breathes sweet breath :

O labyrinth,

O sunless gloom,

The other side of death!

GEORGE ELIOT.

"THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.”

3OULD we but know

The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel,

Where lie those happier hills and meadows low,

Ah, if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil,

Aught of that country could we surely know,
Who would not go?

Might we but hear

The hovering angels' high imagined chorus,
Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear,

One radiant vista of the realm before us,

With one rapt moment given to see and hear,
Ah, who would fear?

Were we quite sure

To find the peerless friend who left us lonely,
Or there, by some celestial stream as pure,
To gaze in eyes that here were lovelit only,-
This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure,
Who would endure?

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

NOT YET.

OT yet, not yet, the light;
Underground, out of sight,

Like moles, we blindly toil.
On, though we know not where;
Some day the upper air,

The sun, and all things fair,

We reach through the dark soil.

BEATRIX TOLLEMACHE.

BY-AND-BY.

AITING, waiting. 'Tis so far

To the day that is to come :
One by one the days that are

All to tell their countless sum;
Each to dawn and each to die-
What so far as by-and-by?

Waiting, waiting. 'Tis not ours
This to-day that flies so fast :
Let them go, the shadowy hours
Floating, floated, into Past.
Our day wears to-morrow's sky,-
What so near as by-and-by?

AUGUSTA WEBSTER.

AFTER.

LITTLE time for laughter,
A little time to sing,

A little time to kiss and cling,
And no more kissing after.

A little while for scheming
Love's unperfected schemes;
A little time for golden dreams,
Then no more any dreaming.

A little while 'twas given

To me to have thy love;

Now, like a ghost, alone I move About a ruined heaven.

A little time for speaking,

Things sweet to say and hear;

A time to seek, and find thee near, Then no more any seeking.