A

MADONNA MIA

LILY-GIRL, not made for this world's pain,

With soft brown hair close braided by her ears,

And longing eyes half veiled

by slumberous tears

Like bluest water seen through mists of

rain:

Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its

stain,

Red underlip drawn in for fear of love, And white throat, whiter than the sil

vered dove,

Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.

Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,

Even to kiss her feet I am not bold, Being o'ershadowed by the wings of

awe.

Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice Beneath the flaming lion's breast, and

saw

The seventh Crystal and the Stair of

Gold.

-Oscar Wilde.

When the heated guns of

the camps allied

Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay grim and threatening under,
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said:

"We storm the forts to-morrow;

Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow."

They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:

Brave hearts, from Severn and from
Clyde,

And from the banks of Shannon.

They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:

Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang "Annie Laurie.”

Voice after voice caught up the song,

Until its tender passion

Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,Their battle-eve confession.

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
But, as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.

Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.

And once again a fire of hell

Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of "Annie Laurie."

Sleep, soldiers! Still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:

The bravest are the tenderest,

The loving are the daring.

-Bayard Taylor

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

B

REAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones,

O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

W

THE BABY

HERE did you come from baby dear?

Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get those eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?

Some of the starry spikes left in.

Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?

A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?

I saw something better than any one knows.