II.

AUTUMNAL SONNET.

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,

And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,

And night by night the monitory blast

Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd

O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,

Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods

Than any joy indulgent summer dealt.

Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve,
Pensive and glad, with tones that recognise
The soft invisible dew in each one's eyes,

It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave

To walk with memory,-when distant lies

Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

III.

A DAY-DREAM'S REFLECTION.

("On the Sunny Shore.")

CHEQUER'D with woven shadows as I lay

Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,
I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay

Most idly floating in the noontide beam.

Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway Of ocean's giant pulsing, and the Dream, Buoyed like the young moon on a level stream

Of greenish vapour at decline of day,

Swam airily, watching the distant flocks

Of sea-gulls, whilst a foot in careless sweep
Touched the clear-trembling cool with tiny shocks,
Faint-circling; till at last he dropt asleep,

Lull'd by the hush-song of the glittering deep,
Lap-lapping drowsily the heated rocks.

IV.

AFTER SUNSET.

THE vast and solemn company of clouds
Around the Sun's death, lit, incarnadined,
Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds
The level pasture, creeping up behind
Through voiceless vales, o'er lawn and purpled hill

And hazèd mead, her mystery to fulfil.

Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind
Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,-

Tho' all the wood, alive atop with wings
Lifting and sinking through the leafy nooks,
Seethes with the clamour of a thousand rooks.
Now every sound at length is hush'd away.
These few are sacred moments. One more Day
Drops in the shadowy gulf of bygone things.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

V.

EAST LONDON.

'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead

Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,

And the pale weaver through his windows seen

In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited;

I met a preacher there I knew, and said :

"Ill and o'erworked, how fare you in this scene?"

Bravely," said he; "for I of late have been

Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the living bread.”

O human soul! as long as thou canst so

Set up a mark of everlasting light,

Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,

To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam,

Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.

VI.

SHAKESPEARE.

OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil'd searching of Mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-schooled, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst walk on earth unguess'd at.-Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.