TO A GIPSY CHILD BY THE SHORE.

What exile's, changing bitter thoughts with glad?

What seraph's, in some alien planet born?— No exile's dream was ever half so sad,

Nor any angel's sorrow so forlorn.

Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh

Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore:

But in disdainful silence turn away,

Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more?

Or do I wait, to hear some gray-hair'd king

Unravel all his many-colour'd lore:

Whose mind hath known all arts of governing,
Mus'd much, lov'd life a little, loath'd it more?

Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope,
Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give-
Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope,

Foreseen thy harvest-yet proceed'st to live.

O meek anticipant of that sure pain

Whose sureness gray-hair'd scholars hardly learn! What wonder shall time breed, to swell thy strain?

What heavens, what earth, what suns shalt thou discern?

Ere the long night whose stillness brooks no star,
Match that funereal aspect with her pall,

I think, thou wilt have fathom'd life too far,
Have known too much-or else forgotten all.

The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil
Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps:
Hath sown with cloudless passages the tale
Of grief, and eas'd us with a thousand sleeps.

Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use,

Not daily labour's dull, Lethæan spring, Oblivion in lost angels can infuse

Of the soil'd glory, and the trailing wing;

And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners may,
In the throng'd fields where winning comes by strife;
And though the just sun gild, as all men pray,

Some reaches of thy storm-vext stream of life;

Though that blank sunshine blind thee; though the cloud
That sever'd the world's march and thine is gone:
Though ease dulls grace, and Wisdom be too proud,
To halve a lodging that was all her own:

Once ere the day decline, thou shalt discern,
Oh once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain:
Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return,
And wear this majesty of grief again.

BENNETT.

BABY'S SHOES.

On, those little, those little blue shoes! Those shoes that no little feet use.

Oh, the price were high

That those shoes would buy, Those little blue unused shoes!

For they hold the small shape of feet That no more their mother's eyes meet, That, by God's good will,

Years since grew still,

And ceased from their totter so sweet.

And oh, since that baby slept,

So hushed, how the mother has kept,
With a tearful pleasure,

That little dear treasure,

And over them thought and wept!

For they mind her for evermore

Of a patter along the floor;

And blue eyes she sees

Look up from her knees

With the look that in life they wore.

As they lie before her there,

There babbles from chair to chair

A little sweet face

That's a gleam in the place,

With its little gold curls of hair.

Then, oh, wonder not that her heart
From all else would rather part

Than those tiny blue shoes

That no little feet use,

And whose sight makes such fond tears start!

LILIAN'S EPITAPH.

THOU hast been and thou hast fled,
Rose, sweet rose;

Budded, flushed, and, ah! art dead,

Rose, sweet rose;

Yet oblivion may not kill

Dreams of thee, our thoughts that fill,
And for us thou'rt blooming still,
Rose, sweet rose.

Breathing rose, nor might'st thou stay,
Rose, sweet rose;

Thou too, woe! hast passed away,

Rose, sweet rose;

Yet though death had heart to sever
Life and thee, thou'rt from us never;
No, in thought thou'rt with us ever,
Rose, sweet rose.

ALEXANDER SMITH.

SCENE-THE BANKS OF A RIVER.

'Tis that loveliest stream.

I've learned by heart its sweet and devious course By frequent tracing, as a lover learns

The features of his best beloved's face.

In memory it runs, a shining thread,

With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls.
From yonder trees I've seen the western sky

All washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun
Beat like a pulse, welling at ev'ry beat

A spreading wave of light. Where yonder church Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede

For sinful hamlets scatter'd at its feet,

I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down,
And all the west was paved with sullen fire.
I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hell
At ebb tide." The ghost of one bright hour
Comes from its grave and stands before me now.
"Twas at the close of a long summer day,

As we were sitting on yon grassy slope,
The sunset hung before us like a dream

That shakes a demon in his fiery lair;

The clouds were standing round the setting sun

Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles,

Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light,

Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame, Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks

Of pilèd gorgeousness, and rocks of fire

A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas—

All these were huddled in that dreadful west,
All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light,