47

I see the rose's beauty, not its blight,

The jewel's flash and gleam; the crown that lies Upon the hills, to me the sails are white;

Such pure delight comes to me through my eyes,

I do not even wish her keener sight,

And think it must be sad to be so wise.

VIVIEN.

ABOUT her lissome limbs the samite clings,
And in her hair I see the snake of gold;

I meet her glances, sweet and soft and bold,
And in mine ear her songs of love she sings;
Low at my feet her trustless trust she flings.

I know her well. 'T is she who fold on fold,
In days long gone, 'round Merlin wise and old
Wrapped all her subtle charms; sweet threatenings,
And tears and smiles. Dead? Vivien dead? Why,
You and I and all men for her sake
Daily forget ourselves, and every day

Do hear the cry, "O, Fool!" She will not die
While there is still in man a heart to break,
A brain to turn, a soul to lead astray.

G

GEORGE FRANCIS ARMSTRONG.

EORGE FRANCIS ARMSTRONG comes of that Border family so well known to readers of ancient ballad literature-so well and unfavorably known, in its day, to the sheriff and wardens of Border counties-the Armstrongs, of Lidderdale. The numerous race of the Irish Armstrongs descend from an ancestor who settled in Fermanagh, in the reign of James I. The poet's father held various public offices of trust in Ireland, and at the time of the birth of his younger son was living in the County Dublin, not far from the borders of that other county, Wicklow, whose scenery forms a background to many of George Armstrong's finest sketches of life and character. His elder brother, Edmund, was also a poet, and one so nobly endowed, both in intellect and character, that his death, at the age of twenty-three, was felt to be a national loss, paralleled, perhaps, only twice in the century, when Ireland wept for Charles Wolfe and for Thomas Davis. On foot the brothers visited, together or separately, a great part of their native land; but Wicklow gave each of them his first poetic stimulus; and their first serious literary enterprise-which, however, could not be carried to publication-was a joint volume on such themes as the young poet has lately treated in his "Stories of Wicklow."

George Armstrong was born May 5th, 1845. He was educated chiefly in Dublin, where in due time he entered Trinity College (1862). His career in the University was a very distinguished one, and his prizes included the Vice-Chancellor's Prize for English Verse. He was especially active as a member of the literary societies in college, and, on the lamented death of his brother, succeeded him as President of the Philosophical Society. By this body and the Historical Society he was called upon to edit a selection of his brother's writings, which they desired to publish as a memorial-a task which none could have more worthily performed.

His first volume of poems was published in 1869. He was only twenty-four years old, but his mind had been ripened by study, thought and sorrow; and foreign travel (largely on foot) through several European countries had given him much of that experience of life without which the poet, however he may speak to the fancy, can rarely stir the deeper moral emotions. On the publication of this volume, a letter of warm praise from the

curleth not.

-Hail and Farewell.

have given him full assurance of his right to take up the pen that had fallen from his brother's hand. His next publication was a dramà named "Ugone," which was generously received by the

English press; and he appears to have seriously considered at the time the possibility of reviving the poetic drama of the stage. His study of the condition of the drama, however, led him to abandon the idea as, for the present, impracticable; but, happily, he did not abandon the dramatic form of literature, and between the years 1871 and 1876 his magnum opus, the triology entitled the "Tragedy of Israel," was written and published.

In 1871, he had been appointed Professor of English Literature and History in the Queen's College of Cork, a post which he still holds, to the great advantage of that institution. He is also a Fellow of the Royal University; and the Queen's University, together with his own University of Dublin, have acknowledged his literary distinction by honorary degrees. In 1879 he married Miss Marie Elizabeth Wrixon. A period of Continental travel followed, of which the most important memorial is his beautiful volume, "A Garland from Greece." Besides this, his most substantial literary works since the Triology have been the "Life and Letters" of his brother Edmund (a deeply interesting volume), the "Stories of Wicklow," in which he fulfilled the cherished scheme which he and his brother were to have executed in common, and a satire named "Mephistopheles in Broadcloth." He has also lately produced a work of great antiquarian, historical, and, through the beautiful drawings of Mrs. Armstrong, artistic interest — a family history of the Irish branches of the Savage family, whose blood has flowed in the veins of so many English poets - Tennyson, Landor and others. To these must be added Armstrong himself, who (through his mother) now represents the Glastry branch of the Savages of the Ards.

Professor Armstrong lives in Cork for the time that his official duties keep him there, but spends several months of the summer in Bray, W. Wicklow, among scenes in which, to this day, he finds the strongest impulse to his poetic faculty. He has taken no part in the passionate politics of his day and land, but is known to hold decidedly Unionist opinions. At the same time his interest in Ireland, its scenery, people and national history, is that of a true patriot. He is, indeed, far too much of a poet, as well as of a patriot, not to respect all that gives his country an individual place and character in the Empire of which it forms a part.

J. W. R.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

OUR dead sleep on. Draw closer to the fire,
And keep the poor life warm in the lorn breast
A little longer-for the months or years.

I marvel which is worthier of desire-
Their lot who lie in that cold seeming-rest,

Or ours, with aching hearts and bursting tears, Who mourn for them, and stretch our hands and cry

To bring them back to us, or start to find The old seats vacant and no dear one by

To learn the last bright thought that flashes from the mind.

O, lovely are the earth and the wide heaven!
How fair a world to close the eyes upon
For ever! They who loved these breaking

waves

And these green woods, and yon pale tints of even, See them no more. The wandering breeze of

dawn

Makes music in the grasses of their graves; The birds about their bright homes tenantless Warble to infant ears; the sunbeams creep Into their chambers' utter nakedness; The rills besides their doors in light unheeded leap.

But we have still our Mountains that we love, And the full streams with all their melodies, Boughs brightening with a promise of sure spring

I' the level beam that gilds the winter grove, Still the quick blood that tingles in the breeze, Warm sleep secure of dawn's awakening, Reviving hope that reasserts her sway

Even in the saddest heart, soft twilight hours Wherein to dream our weariness away,

Still the keen eye and still the mind's unvanquished powers.

Compensates their cold rest the loss of these,
Joy of hale hearts, the rapture of the strife,
Imagination's ecstasy, the flight

Of venturous thought, the meditative ease,
The summer seasons of tempestous life?

Or, find they larger bliss and lovelier light
Beyond the doors none enter save alone?
Whether 't were good to follow them and dare,
As they have dared, the void of Death unknown,
Which of them shall arise from darkness and •
declare?

IN THE MOUNTAIN LAND.

DREAD Spirit, that, whate'er the uncertain tongue
Of crude Conjecture unto credulous ears
May stammer, still to me, with heart yet young
To learn, to feel, from out the measureless years
Speakest, and everywhere through earth, sky, sea,
Dost palpitate in ceaseless energy,—

50

Who shall deserve Life if we swerve

From the deeds we are banded to dare and to do?

AUTUMN MEMORIES.

WHEN russet beech-leaves drift in air,
And withering bracken gilds the ling,
And red haws brighten hedgerows bare,
And only plaintive robins sing,
When autumn whirlwinds curl the sea,
And mountain-tops are cold with haze,
Then saddest thoughts revisit me,—
I sit and dream of the olden days.

When chestnut-leaves lie yellow on ground,
And brown nuts break the prickled husk,
And nests on naked boughs are found,
And swallows shrill no more at dusk,
And folks are glad in house to be,

And up the flue the faggots blaze,
Then climb my little boys my knee
To hear me tell of the olden days.

A DIFFICULTY.

AS IN Heaven no hate can be,

Or scorn that worketh dole, And my hate of thee and my scorn of thee Never can leave my soul,

It followeth sure that one of us twain Into the flame must go;

And since thy conscience hath no stain And all thy face doth glow

With a greasy, gleaming righteousness
And an archangelic dye,

If either it be, thou wilt confess,
It cannot but be I;

So there cometh a question of interest,-
Where were it good to dwell?
Which would the rest consider the best,
Thy Heaven or my Hell?

BYRON.

WAS it all-glorious, Byron, to have died
To loose the despicable yoke that bound
Degenerate Greece, to strive on alien ground
To break a mouldering chain, and yet deride
With peevish lip the stern, the stubborn pride

Of thine own England, hurling from his place
Freedom's Imperial Foe in foul disgrace?
We ask not. And for that pure love which wound
Thy ruined heart like the green ivy-twine,

51

A

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

RTHUR HUGH CLOUGH was born in Liverpool

on the first day of the year 1819. When he was four years of age, his father migrated to the United States, and the early years of his boyhood were spent in Charleston, South Carolina. In the autumn of 1828, the Cloughs returned to England, and Arthur was sent to a school in Chester, whence he proceeded to Rugby in the summer of 1829. Here he came under the marvellous influence of the greatest of English schoolmasters; and in Clough, Dr. Arnold found a pupil after his own heart,-a youth largely dowered by nature with that intellectual and ethical strenuousness which it was Arnold's chief aim to inspire and develop. His school career was a brilliant one. At fifteen he was the head of the fifth form; he edited for some time the Rugby Magazine, to which he contributed his earliest verse; he took an active part in some of the school games, his name appearing in William Arnold's "Rules of Football" as that of the best goal-keeper on record; and when, in October, 1837, he passed on to Oxford, having won the Balliol scholarship in the preceding year, he had gained every honor which Rugby had to bestow. Oxford was then the center of the memorable Tractarian movement, and a mind so sensitive as Clough's, so full of fine ardors and high enthusiasms, could not fail to be affected by the ferment of new thought in which he found himself. For some little time his intellectual activities were turned into an unfamiliar channel, and the earliest evidence that a disturbing element had come into his life was furnished by his failure to take a first-class, and his unsuccessful competition for a fellowship at Balliol. But, though Clough's mind was sensitive, it was stable; and he was not long in recovering his equilibrium. In the spring of 1842, he was elected Fellow of Oriel, and by this time he had worked his way through the storm and stress in which, to use his own words, he had been "like a straw," and had regained possession of himself. Still, such a conflict seldom leaves a man where it found him, and in struggling to make a stand against what he felt to be alien influences, Clough's intellectual attitude had insensibly changed. An aggressive doubter he could never have been, but he had become an eager questioner; and the final result of his questioning was the resignation, in 1848, of his Oriel Fellowship, and also of the tutorship to which he had been subsequently appointed. Then came a month in Paris among the sights of the Revolution; a visit to Liverpool, during which he wrote "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich"; his appointment as Head of University Hall, London; and a visit to