Let, then, winged Fancy find

Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;

Quickly break her prison-string,

And such joys as these she'll bring.—

Let the winged Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home.

John Keats.

The Children's Hour

BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence ;
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall !
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me ; They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you for ever,
Yes, for ever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

H. W. Longfellow.

MORE FRIENDS

Once on a time I used to dream

Strange spirits moved about my way,
And I might catch a vagrant gleam,
A glint of pixy or of fay;

Their lives were mingled with my own,

So far they roamed, so near they drew ;
And when I from a child had grown,

I woke and found my dream was true.

For one is clad in coat of fur,

And one is decked with feathers gay;
Another, wiser, will prefer

A sober suit of Quaker grey :

This one's your servant from his birth,

And that a Princess you must please,
And this one loves to wake your mirth,
And that one likes to share your ease.

O gracious creatures, tiny souls!
You seem so near, so far away,

Yet while the cloudland round us rolls,
We love you better every day.

Margaret Benson.

We had much billiards; music, too, and company; I could take no part in the two first; I love most of the last that I know, and as there were two or three children, and two or three-and-forty dogs, I could not want amusement, for I generally prefer both to what the common people call Christians.

Horace Walpole (to Lady Ossory).