GRIEVE not that ripe Knowledge takes away
The charm that Nature to my childhood wore,
For, with that insight, cometh, day by day,
A greater bliss than wonder was before;
The real doth not clip the poet's wing,-
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart
Reveals some clew to spiritual things,
And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art:
Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes,
Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense;
He knows that outward seemings are but lies,
Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence
The soul that looks within for truth may guess
The presence of some wondrous heavenliness.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

TO HELEN.

MOMENTARY wish passed through my

brain,

To be the monarch of some magic place, Thick-sown with burning gems, or to constrain

The uncouth help of some half-demon race, Vexing the pearl-paved billows of the main.

For thee, and starry caverns in far space.
It was a wish unwisely formed, and vain ;

Even in the humblest trifles, love can trace
That which no mine can give, no Geni's wing
From depths beneath or heights above can bring;
The memories of each kind look and tone,
Gestures, and glancing smiles, into the gift
Pass like a living spirit, and uplift

Its value, to the level of their own.

SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.

AUTUMN.

OW Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,
And night by night the monitory blast

Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd

O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,

Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods

Than any joy indulgent summer dealt. Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve, Pensive and glad, with tones that recognise The soft invisible dew in each one's eyes, It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave To walk with memory, when distant lies Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

S

M

OCTOBER.

3Y, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,

And the year

smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay

In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away.

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I

Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks,

And, dearer yet, the sunshine of soft looks,

And music of kind voices ever nigh;

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

WORLDLY PLACE.

VEN in a palace, life may be led well!
So spoke the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius.-But the stifling den

Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
And drudge under some foolish master's ken,
Who rates us, if we peer outside our pen-
Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?

Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;
And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,

I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here! The aids to noble life are all within."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.