These constitute a state;

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks;

And e'en the all-dazzling crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks;

Such was this heaven-loved isle,

Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore!

No more shall freedom smile?

Shall Britons languish and be men no more?

Since all must life resign,

Those sweet rewards which decorate

the brave

'Tis folly to decline,

And steal inglorious to the silent

grave.

-Sir William Jones.

Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush
Deeply ripened;-such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell,-
Which were blackest none could tell;
But long lashes veiled a light
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks.

Sure, I said, Heaven did not mean
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean;
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,

Share my harvest and my home.

-Thomas Hood.

H

TRUE NOBILITY

CONOR and shame from no

condition rise;

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.

Fortune in men has some

small difference made,

One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;

The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,

The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.

"What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl!"

I'll tell you friend! a wise man and a

fool.

You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,

Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it

the fellow;

The rest is all but leather or prunello.

-Alexander Pope.

W

TO M. E. H.

HEN you wake in your crib,
You, an inch of experience-
Vaulted about

With the wonder of darkness,
Wailing and striving

To reach from your feebleness
Something you feel

Will be good to and cherish you,

Something you know

And can rest upon blindly:
O then a hand

(Your mother's, your mother's!)
By the fall of its fingers

All knowledge, all power to you,
Out of the dreary,

Discouraging strangenesses
Comes to and masters you,
Takes you, and lovingly
Woos you and soothes you
Back, as you cling to it,
Back to some comforting
Corner of Sleep.

So you wake in your bed,
Having lived, having loved:
But the shadows are there,

And the world and its kingdoms
Incredibly faded;

And you grope in Terror
Above you and under

For the light, for the warmth,

The assurance of life;

But the blasts are ice-born,
And your heart is nigh burst
With the weight of the gloom
And the stress of your strangled
And desperate endeavour:
Sudden a hand-

Mother, O Mother!

God at His best to you,

Out of the roaring,
Impossible silences,

Falls on and urges you,

Mightily, tenderly,

Forth, as you clutch at it,

Forth to the infinite

Peace of the Grave.

-William Ernest Henley.