THE SOUL.

(From "Balder.")

AND as the mounting and descending bark,
Borne on exulting by the under deep,

Gains of the wild wave something not the wave,
Catches a joy of going and a will

Resistless, and upon the last lee foam

Leaps into air beyond it, so the soul

Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tossed,
Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged
To darkness, and, still wet with drops of death,
Held into light eternal, and again.

Cast down, to be again uplift in vast
And infinite succession, cannot stay
The mad momentum.

To AMERICA.

No force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye,
Who North or South, on East or Western land,
Native to noble sounds, say Truth for truth,

Freedom for freedom, Love for love, and God
For God; O ye who in eternal youth

Speak, with a living and creative flood,
This universal English, and do stand
Its breathing book! live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance - parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered - children brave and free,

Of the great mother-tongue; and ye shall be

Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,

Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

VOL. VII.-26

3698

HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON.

DOBSON, HENRY AUSTIN, English critic, poet, and biographer, born at Plymouth, January 18, 1840. He was educated partly in England, partly in France and Germany, with the purpose of becoming a civil engineer; but at the age of sixteen he was appointed to a clerkship in the Board of Trade. His writings are exceedingly clever and graceful; his verses particularly showing a cultivated imagination and much tenderness of expression. In 1873 he collected his scattered lyrics into a volume entitled "Vignettes in Rhyme and Vers de Société," which was followed in 1877 by "Proverbs in Porcelain." His principal prose work is the "Life of Fielding." He has also written many biographical and critical sketches, of Hogarth, Prior, Praed, Gay, and Hood. Among his best works are: "After Sedan," "The Dead Letter," and "The young Musician." Among his later works are "Thomas Bewick and his Pupils" (1884); "Life of Steele (English Worthies, 1886); "Life of Goldsmith" (Great Writers, 1888); "Memoir of Horace Walpole" (1890); "Four French Women," essays (1890); an enlarged edition of "Life of Hogarth" (1891); "Eighteenth Century Vignettes" (1892), a second series (1894).

MORE POETS YET.

"MORE Poets yet?" I hear him say,
Arming his heavy hand to slay;

"Despite my skill and 'swashing blow,'
They seem to sprout where'er I go;

I killed a host but yesterday!"

Slash on, O Hercules! You may:

Your task 's at best a Hydra-fray;

And, though you cut, not less will grow
More Poets yet!

Too arrogant! For who shall stay
The first blind motions of the May?
Who shall outblot the morning glow,
Or stem the full heart's overflow?
Who? There will rise, till Time decay,
More Poets yet!

ANGEL VISITANTS.

ONCE at the Angelus (ere I was dead),

Angels all glorious came to my bed:

Angels in blue and white, crowned on the head.

One was the friend I left stark in the snow;
One was the wife that died long, long ago;
One was the love I lost how could she know?

One had my mother's eyes, wistful and mild;
One had my father's face; one was a child:
All of them bent to me; bent down and smiled.

GIVE US BUT YESTERDAY.

PRINCES! and you most valorous,
Nobles and Barons of all degrees!
Hearken awhile to the prayer of us,

Prodigals driven by the Destinies!
Nothing we ask or of gold or fees;
Harry us not with the hounds, we pray;
Lo-for the surcoat's hem we seize;
"Give us―ah! give us but Yesterday!'

Dames most delicate, amorous!

Damosels blithe as the belted bees!

Beggars are we that pray you thus;

Beggars outworn of miseries!

Nothing we ask of the things that please;

Weary are we, and old, and gray;

Lo- for we clutch, and we clasp your knees; "Give us-ah! give us but Yesterday!"

Damosels, Dames, be piteous!

(But the Dames rode fast by the roadway trees.) Hear us, O Knights magnanimous !

(But the Knights pricked on in their panoplies.) Nothing they gat of hope or ease,

But only to beat on the breast and say:

"Life we drank to the dregs and lees; but Yesterday!"

Give us - ah! give us

Youth, take heed to the prayer of these!
Many there be by the dusty way,
Many that cry to the rocks and seas,
"Give us ah! give us but Yesterday!"