That little garden was her pride,
With yellow groundsel grown!
Those holly-thickets only hide
-a simple stone!

Her grave-
Copyright, 1897, by The Macmillan Com

pany.

THE ANTE-CHAMBER.*

THAT is his portrait painted by himself. Look on those manly curls so glossy dark, Those thoughtful furrows in the swarthy cheek;

Admire that stalwart shape, those ample brows,

And that large table of the breast dispread,

Between low shoulders; how demure a smile,

How full of wisest humour and of love, With some half-consciousness of inward power,

Sleeps round those quiet lips; not quite a smile;

And look you. what an arch the brain has built

Above the ear! and what a settled mind, Mature, harbour'd from change, contemplative,

Tempers the peaceful light of hazel eyes, Observing all things. This is he I loved, This is the man of whom you heard me speak.

My fancy was the more luxurious, But his was minted in a deeper mould, And took in more of Nature than mine

own:

Nor proved I such delight as he, to mark The humours of the polling and the wake,

The hubbub of the market and the booths:

How this one smiled, that other waved his arms, These careful and those candid brows, how each

Down to his slightest turns and attitudes

Was something that another could not be, How every brake and flower spread and

rose,

A various world! which he compell'd

once more

To A. H. H. (ORIGINALLY No. CVIII.).*

II.

YOUNG is the grief I entertain,

And ever new the tale she tells, And ever young the face that dwells With reason cloister'd in the brain:

Yet grief deserves a nobler name:

She spurs an imitative will;

'Tis shame to fail so far, and still My failing shall be less my shame :

Considering what mine eyes have seen,
And all the sweetness which thou wast
In thy beginnings in the past,
And all the strength thou wouldst have
been:

A master mind with master minds,
An orb repulsive of all hate,
A will concentric with all fate,
A life four-square to all the winds.

* Copyright, 1897, by The Macmillan Company.

THE VICTOR HOURS (ORIGINALLY NO. CXXVII.),*

III.

ARE those the far-famed Victor Hours
That ride to death the griefs of men?
I fear not; if I feared them, then
Is this blind flight the winged Powers.

Behold, ye cannot bring but good,

And see, ye dare not touch the truth,

We quarrel here at home, and they plot against us yonder,

They will not let an honest Briton sit at home at ease: and the

Up, Jack Tars, my hearties! d-l take the parties!

Up and save the pride of the Mistress of the Seas!

Up, Jack Tars, and save us!

The whole world shall not brave us! Up and save the pride of the Mistress of the Seas!

The lasses and the little ones, Jack Tars, they look to you!

The despots over yonder, let 'em do whate'er they please!

God bless the little isle where a man may still be true!

God bless the noble isle that is Mis
tress of the Seas!

Up, Jack Tars, and save us!
The whole world shall not brave us!
If you will save the pride of the Mis
tress of the Seas.