LOVE'S ANSWER.

SAID to Love, "Lo one thing troubles me! How shall I show the way in which I love? Is any word, or look, or kiss enough To show to her my love's extremity? What is there I can say, or do, that she

May know the strength and utter depth thereof? For words are weak, such love as mine to prove, Though I should pour them forth unceasingly." Then fell Love's smile upon me as he said,

"Thou art a child in love, not knowing this; That could she know thy love by word or kiss, Or gauge it by its show, 'twere all but dead : For not by bounds, but shoreless distances, Full knowledge of the sea is compassèd."

PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.

Q

WINGED HOURS.

ACH hour until we meet is as a bird

That wings from far his gradual way along The rustling covert of my soul,-his song Still loudlier trilled through leaves more deeply stirr❜d.

But at the hour of meeting, a clear word

Is every note he sings, in Love's own tongue;
Yet, Love, thou know'st the sweet strain suffers

wrong,

Through our contending kisses oft unheard.

What of that hour at last, when for her sake

No wing may fly to me nor song may flow; When, wandering round my life unleaved, I know The blooded feathers scattered in the brake,

And think how she, far from me, with like eyes Sees through the tuneful bough the wingless skies?

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

BROKEN MUSIC.

HE mother will not turn, who thinks she hears
Her nursling's speech first grow articulate;
But breathless with averted eyes elate

She sits, with open lips and open ears, That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,

A central moan for days, at length found tongue. And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.

But now, whatever while the soul is fain

To list that wonted murmur, as it were

The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain,— No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,

Oh bitterly beloved! and all her gain

Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

NIGHTINGALES.

HAT spirit moves the quiring nightingales
To utter forth their notes so soft and clear?
What purport hath their music, which pre-
vails

At midnight, thrilling all the darkened air?
'Tis said, some weeks before the hen-birds land
Upon our shores, their tuneful mates appear;
And, in that space, by hope and sorrow spann'd,
Their sweetest melodies 'tis ours to hear;
And is it so? for solace till they meet,
Does this most perfect chorus charm the grove?
Do these wild voices, round me and above,
Of amorous forethought and condolence treat?
Well may such lays be sweetest of the sweet,
That aim to fill the intervals of Love!

CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER.

LILITH.

(FOR A PICTURE.)

F Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told

(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve),
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue
could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young, while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright web she can

weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare ?

Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck
bent,

And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.