The Magazine of Poetry and Literary Review

THE

MAGAZINE OF POETRY.

VOL. II.

No. 2.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

LFRED AUSTIN, in the front ranks of living English poets, a personage frequently mentioned as a possible future Laureate, was born at Headingly, near Leeds, Eng., May 30, 1835. His father was a merchant and his mother was a sister of Joseph Locke, an eminent engineer. He was educated in the Catholic College of Stonyhurst, and afterward at St. Mary's College, Oscott. From thence he took a degree, in 1853, at the University in London, and in 1857 was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. It is understood that Mr. Austin has abandoned the faith in which he was reared.

Being unsuccessful at the bar, he took up literature as a profession. His first publication was a poem entitled "Randolph," issued anonymously. His first acknowledged volume of verse was "The Season, a Satire," in 1861. It was severely criticized. Mr. Austin replied with "My Satire and its Censors," 1861, now suppressed.

Since his first publication, Mr. Austin has been a very busy journalist, critic, and prolific producer of original literature that is destined to live. He has written a dozen volumes of verse, a number of novels, a volume of essays ("The Poetry of the Period"), "A Vindication of Lord Byron," in reply to Mrs. Stowe's book, besides writing numerous articles for Temple Bar, the London Standard and the Quarterly Review.

In politics Mr. Austin is a conservative, and has written much in support of his party. He has twice attempted to enter Parliament, but without C. W. M.

success.

II.

No mellow moon, no stars arise;

In other lands they shine and roam:
All I discern are darkening skies
And whitening foam.

III.

So on those lights I gaze that seem
Ghosts of the beacons of my youth,
Ere, rescued from their treacherous gleam,
I steered towards truth.

IV.

And you, too, Byron, did awake,

And ransomed from the cheating breath
Of living adulation, stake
Greatness on death!

Alas! the choice was made too late.
You treated Fame as one that begs,
And having drained the joys that sate
Offered the dregs.

VI.

The lees of life you scornful brought,
Scornful she poured upon the ground:
The honored doom in shame you sought,
You never found.

VII.

"The Spartan borne upon his shield"
Is not the meed of jaded lust;
And ere your feet could reach the field,
Death claimed your dust.

OFF MESOLONGI.

THE lights of Mesolongi gleam

Before me, now the day is gone;

And vague as leaf on drifting stream,
My keel glides on.

VIII.

Upon the pillow, not the rock,

Like meaner things you ebbed away,
Yearning in vain for instant shock
Of mortal fray.

Now do I know that Love is blind, for I
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth,
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth,
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh.
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky,
Seres Spring's maturity, checks Summer's birth,
Leaves linnet's pipe as sad as plover's cry,

And makes me in abundance find but dearth. But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou, With orient eyes, dawnest on my distress, Suddenly sings a bird on every bough,

The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less,

The ground is buoyant as the air, I vow,
And all looks lovely in thy loveliness.

LOVE'S WISDOM.

Now on the summit of Love's topmost peak
Kiss we and part; no farther can we go:
And better death than we from high to low
Should dwindle or decline from strong to weak.

We have found all, there is no more to seek;

All have we proved, no more is there to know; And Time could only tutor us to eke

Out rapture's warmth with custom's after-glow. We can not keep at such a height as this;

And even straining souls like ours inhale But once in life so rarified a bliss.

What if we lingered till love's breath should fail! Heaven of my Earth! one more celestial kiss, Then down by separate pathways to the vale.

THE DREGS OF LOVE.

THINK you that I will drain the dregs of Love,
I who have quaffed the sweetness on its brink?
Now, by the steadfast burning stars above,

Better to faint of thirst than thuswise drink. What! shall we twain, who saw love's glorious fires

Flame toward the sky and flush Heaven's self with light,

Crouch by the embers as the glow expires,

And huddle closer from mere dread of night? No! cast Love's goblet in oblivion's well, Scatter Love's ashes o'er the field of time! Yet, ere we part, one kiss whereon to dwell When life sounds senseless as some feeble rhyme. Lo! as lips touch, anew Love's cresset glows, And Love's sweet cup refills and overflows.

UNSEASONABLE SNOWS.

THE leaves have not yet gone; then why do ye come,

O white flakes falling from a dusky cloud? But yesterday my garden-plot was proud With uncut sheaves of ripe chrysanthemum. Some trees the winds have stripped; but look on some,

'Neath double load of snow and foliage bowed, Unnatural Winter fashioning a shroud For Autumn's burial ere its pulse be numb. Yet Nature plays not an inhuman part:

In her our own vicissitudes we trace.
Do we not cling to our accustomed place,
Though journeying Death have beckoned us to
start?

And faded smiles oft linger in the face,
While grief's first flakes fall silent on the heart!

WHEN ACORNS FALL.

WHEN acorns fall and swallows troop for flight, And hope matured slow mellows to regret, And Autumn, pressed by Winter for his debt, Drops leaf on leaf till she be beggared quite;

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