Such is Munich :-broad and stately,

Rich of hue, and fair of form;

But, towards the end of August,

Unequivocally warm.

There, the long dim galleries threading,

May the artist's eye behold,

Breathing from the "deathless canvass"
Records of the years of old:

Pallas there, and Jove, and Juno,

"Take" once more "their walks abroad,"

Under Titian's fiery woodlands

And the saffron skies of Claude :

There the Amazons of Rubens

Lift the failing arm to strike,

And the pale light falls in masses

On the horsemen of Vandyke;

And in Berghem's pools reflected

Hang the cattle's graceful shapes, And Murillo's soft boy-faces

Laugh amid the Seville grapes;

And all purest, loveliest fancies

That in poets' souls may dwell

Started into shape and substance

At the touch of Raphael.

Lo! her wan arms folded meekly,
And the glory of her hair

Falling as a robe around her,

Kneels the Magdalene in prayer;

And the white-robed Virgin-mother

Smiles, as centuries back she smiled,

Half in gladness, half in wonder,

On the calm face of her Child :

And that mighty Judgment-vision

Tells how man essayed to climb Up the ladder of the ages,

Past the frontier-walls of Time;

Heard the trumpet-echoes rolling

Thro' the phantom-peopled sky,

Mark'd the shower of sunlight breaking
Thro' the crimson panes o'erhead,

And on pictured wall and window

Read the histories of the dead:

Till the kneelers round us, rising,

Cross'd their foreheads and were gone;

And o'er aisle and arch and cornice,

Layer on layer, the night came on.

CHARADES.

I.

HE stood at Greenwich, motionless amid

SHE

The ever-shifting crowd of passengers.

I mark'd a big tear quivering on the lid
Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers
Were days of bitterness. But, "Oh! what stirs"
I said "such storm within so fair a breast?"

Even as I spoke, two apoplectic curs

Came feebly up: with one wild cry she prest

Each singly to her heart, and faltered, "Heaven

be blest!"

Yet once again I saw her, from the deck

Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall.