"Then noonward, as the task grows light with all the labor done, The single thought of all the day becomes a joyous one; For, rising in my heart at last where it has lain so long, It thrills up seeking for a voice, and grows almost a song. "But when the evening comes, indeed, the words have taken wing, The thought sings in me still, but I am all too tired to sing: Therefore, O you my friend, who serve the world with minstrelsy, Among our fellow-workers' songs make that one song for me." E. LEE HAMILTON. STRANGLED. THERE is a legend in some Spanish book About a noisy reveller who, at night, Returning home with others, saw a light Shine from a window, and climbed up to look, And saw within the room, hanged to a hook His own self-strangled self, grim, rigid, white, And who, struck sober by that livid sight, Feasting his eyes, in tongue-tied horror shook. Has any man a fancy to peep in And see, as through a window, in the past, His nobler self, self-choked with coils of sin, Or sloth or folly? Round the throat whipped fast The nooses give the face a stiffened grin. 'Tis but thyself. Look well. Why be aghast? SUNKEN GOLD. IN dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships, While gold doubloons that from the drowned hand fell Lie nestled in the ocean-flower's bell With Love's gemmed rings once kissed by now dead lips. And round some wrought-gold cup the sea-grass whips, And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell, Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell, And seek dim sunlight with their countless tips. So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes, Beneath the now hushed surface of myself, In lonelier depths than where the diver gropes. They lie deep, deep; but I at times MRS. ALICE MEYNELL (MISS ALICE THOMPSON). 1850 [HER first volume, Preludes, was published before her marriage, which occurred in 1877, and received favorable notice by Rossetti and other competent critics. She has written comparatively little in verse, and since her marriage has almost exclusively devoted herself to the composition of prose, giving special attention to matters pertaining to art criticism.] [STEP-DAUGHTER of Karl Blind, the German author and political writer. Miss Blind is known as a slilful editor and critic of Shelley's works. In 1874 she produced a translation of Strauss's Old Faith and the New, and, in 1881, The Prophecy of St. Oran, and Other Poems. She is also the author of a Life of George Eliot, 1883, which has been republished in this country.] [SON of Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S. Born in London, Sept. 21, 1849; educated in Devonshire; appointed assistant librarian at the British Museum in 1867, and received in 1875 the post of translator to the Board of Trade. He spent some time in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Holland, studying the literature of those countries. His poetical writings consist of Madrigals, Songs, and Sonnets (in conjunction with a friend), 1870; On Viol and Flute, 1873; King Erik, a Tragedy, 1876; The Unknown Lover, a Drama, 1878; and New Poems, 1879. He is also the author of about thirty essays contributed to Ward's English Poets, 1880-81. He is now engaged upon a complete edition of the works of Gray. His Life of Gray, in the English Men of Letters Series, appeared in 1882.] Her cheeks are redder than a wild blush-rose: They climb up where the deepest shadows They knew, as I do now, what keen close. But though they pass, and vanish, I am there. I watch his rough hands meet beneath her hair, Their broken speech sounds sweet to me like prayer. Ah! now the rosy children come to play, And romp and struggle with the newmown hay; Their clear high voices sound from far away. A strong man feels to watch the tender delight, flight Of little children playing in his sight; What pure sweet pleasure, and what sacred love, Comes drifting down upon us from above, In watching how their limbs and feat ures move. I do not hunger for a well-stored mind THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS. "OUT in the meadows the young grass springs, Shivering with sap," said the larks, "and we Shoot into air with our strong young wings Spirally up over level and lea; Come, O Swallows, and fly with us Now that horizons are luminous ! Evening and morning the world of light, Spreading and kindling, is infinite!" Far away, by the sea in the south, The hills of olive and slopes of fern Whiten and glow in the sun's long drouth, Under the heavens that beam and But just when the dingles of April flowers Shine with the earliest daffodils, When, before sunrise, the cold clear hours Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils, Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, Perched on a spray by a rivulet-side, Swallows, O Swallows, come back again To swoop and herald the April rain. And something awoke in the slumbering heart Of the alien birds in their African air, And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, And met in the broad white dreamy |