About her cap. I see the picture yet,
Mother and child. A sound from far away,
No louder than a bee among the flowers,
A fall of water lull'd the noon asleep.
You still'd it for the moment with a song
Which often echo'd in me, while I stood
Before the great Madonna-masterpieces
Of ancient Art in Paris, or in Rome.

Mary, my crayons! if I can, I will. You should have been-I might have made you once,

Had I but known you as I know you

now

The true Alcestis of the time. Your song

Sit, listen! I remember it, a proof That I even I-at times remember'd you.

You watch'd not I, she did not grow, she died.

'Father and Mother will watch you grow,

And gather the roses whenever they blow,

And find the white heather wherever you go,

My sweet.'

Ah, my white heather only blooms in heaven

With Milton's amaranth. There, there, there! a child

Had shamed me at it-Down, you idle tools,

Stampt into dust - tremulous, all awry, Blurr'd like a landskip in a ruffled pool, Not one stroke firm. This Art, that harlot-like Seduced me from you, leaves me harlotlike,

Who love her still, and whimper, impotent

To win her back before I die-and then

Then, in the loud world's bastard judg ment-day,

One truth will damn me with the mindless mob,

Who feel no touch of my temptation, more Than all the myriad lies, that blacken round The corpse of every man that gains a name;

'This model husband, this fine Artist'! Fool,

Bards, that the mighty Muses have rake to the heights of the mountain, And over the flight of the Ages! Goddesses, help me up thither. Lightning may shrivel the laurel d Cæsar, but mine would not witha Steep is the mountain, but you, you help me to overcome it,

And stand with my head in the zer and roll my voice from the sum Sounding for ever and ever thro' Eart and her listening nations, And mixt with the great Sphere-music ¿ stars and of constellations.

II.

What be those two shapes high over t sacred fountain,

Taller than all the Muses, and hug than all the mountain?

On those two known peaks they sta ever spreading and heightening, Poet, that evergreen laurel is blasted more than lightning!

Look, in their deep double shadow t crown'd ones all disappearing! Sing like a bird and be happy, nor g for a deathless hearing! 'Sounding for ever and ever?' pass t the sight confuses —

These are Astronomy and Geology, te rible Muses!

III.

If the lips were touch'd with fire from d a pure Pierian altar, Tho' their music here be mortal need singer greatly care?

Other songs for other worlds! the within him would not falter; Let the golden Iliad vanish, Homer b is Homer there.

BY AN EVOLUTIONIST.

THE Lord let the house of a brute to soul of a man,

And the man said, 'Am I your debtor?" And the Lord -'Not yet: but make £ as clean as you can,

And then I will let you a better."

I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be mute? No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne,

Hold the sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy Province of the brute.

II.

I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past, Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low desire, But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last

As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher.

FAR-FAR-AWAY.

(FOR MUSIC.)

WHAT sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew

As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,

Far far away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?

The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells Far far away.

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy, Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,

811

Far-far-away?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath

From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death

Far far away?

-

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth,

The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,

Far far -- away? What charin in words, a charm no words could give?

O dying words, can Music make you live Far-far- away?

POLITICS.

WE move, the wheel must always move,
Nor always on the plain,
And if we move to such a goal

As Wisdom hopes to gain,

Then you that drive, and know your Craft,
Will firmly hold the rein,
Nor lend an ear to random cries,
Or you may drive in vain,

•

For some cry Quick' and some cry 'Slow,'

But, while the hills remain, Up hill Too-slow' will need the whip, Down hill 'Too-quick,' the chain.