THE BOY MUSICIAN.

All day I questioned bitterly of death,

Striving to wring the secret from its pain; Is all hope past with passing human breath?

Are human lives but lived and lost in vain ?

There came no answer from the old grey town, No answer from the river's murmured song ; The ruined castle only seemed to frown

As though my sadness did the silence wrong.

And tender sunset colours came and went
Over the ruin and the land below,
Kindling their greyness to a wonderment
Of rosy glory and of golden glow.

But I was left alone. No sunset light

Fell on my sorrow, and no answering word Came to my heart-but dark and starless night Which echoed back the prayer of day unheard.

And then you came, dear child, with holy eyes,
And spoke in music what you could not know,
And all my heart rose up in quick surprise
To feel that music's sympathy with woe.

Was it some grand old master's soul again
That lived unconsciously in what you played?
You could not know the mysteries of pain
I felt were in the music which you made.

Perchance in harmonies of life and breath

And in the chords and discords of our lot, Yea-in that wondrous minor key of death We make God's music, understanding not.

VIOLIN MUSIC.

Is it that Nature draws a well-strung bow
O'er all the human hearts whose quivering strings
Lie on her breast, and for an answer brings

A cry of passion vaster than we know,
An endless vibrating of love and woe?
Is it the gathered sadness of the sea,
Or all the wind says in its agony ?

Is it the tread of men who feel they go
To certain death? Yes! all of these and more.
Beyond the anguish of the wound, the balm ;
Beyond the maddened waves, the quiet shore;
Beyond the sweeping storms, the depths of calı;
Hid in that music's resonant refrain

Lie joy and victory beyond all pain.

SANDOWN BAY.

Oh! the summer sunshine

Lighting all the bay,

Making gladness gladder Whilst the children play. They are building mountains, They are digging lakes, Leaving large things dearer For the small things' sakes.

Great waves, grey and curling,
Foam in freshening spray,
God's mysterious music
Mingling in their play;
Rippling baby chatter!
Sunny baby wiles !—
Heaven keeps the secret
Of the children's smiles.

All the glad sea's glory
Dimly stretched away,
Like that unknown story
They shall know some day.
In God's endless anthem
Sung by earth and seas
Are there notes of laughter
Sounding on the breeze?

MAY-TIME IN WITHYBUSH WOODS.

Enough, Great Father, all our hearts are filled,
Our inmost being with Thy beauty thrilled—
The overflow of song, the life that teems,

The clouds that float athwart the blue like dreams,
The trees that seem to laugh themselves to leaf,
In banishment of winter's gloom and grief.
The swaying boughs of green, the quivering air,
The wealth of golden flowers everywhere,

The mystic hum of unseen life we hear,
The Eternal Presence ever brooding near.

We have not room or grasp for more than this,
Even the half of all there is, we miss.

Our hearts are full; these shallow hearts too soon Fail in receiving such a royal boon.

With all our petty wants and cares we fill

The space that should be Thine, and then the thrill
Of this Thy beauty comes to half-closed eyes

With something of a dimly felt surprise.
Had we but Nature's calm within our breast,
Could we but enter into Love's true rest,
Life would be Beauty, and all Beauty, Life-
Our wills and Thine no longer be at strife,
But larger hearts would grow from clearer sight,
And we should read Spring's secret in Thy light.