lichen - blurred gravestones all alone;

is the kind of ruin strange sights to

That

see

may have their teaching for you and me.

Something like this, then, my guide had to tell,

Perched on a saint cracked across when he fell;

But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench,

He talking his patois and I EnglishFrench,

I'll put what he told me, preserving the tone,

In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own.

An abbey-church stood here, once on a time,

Built as a death-bed atonement for crime :

'T was for somebody's sins, I know not

Convicted of green cheese by Reason.

And none will seem so safe from change,
Nor in such skies benignant hover,
As this, beneath whose witchery strange
You tread on rose-leaves with your
lover.

The glass unfilled all tastes can fit,

As round its brim Conjecture dances; For not Mephisto's self hath wit

To draw such vintages as Fancy's.

When our pulse beats its minor key, When play-time halves and schooltime doubles,

Age fills the cup with serious tea, Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles.

"Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise? Is this the moral of a poet, Who, when the plant of Eden dies, Is privileged once more to sow it? "That herb of clay-disdaining root, From stars secreting what it feeds on, Is burnt-out passion's slag and soot Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on? "Pray, why, if in Arcadia once,

Need one so soon forget the way there? Or why, once there, be such a dunce As not contentedly to stay there?" Dear child, 't was but a sorry jest,

And from my heart I hate the cynic Who makes the Book of Life a nest

For comments staler than rabbinic.

If Love his simple spell but keep,
Life with ideal eyes to flatter,
The Grail itself were crockery cheap
To Every-day's communion-platter.

One Darby is to me well known,

Who, as the hearth between them blazes,

Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, And float her youthward in its hazes.

He rubs his spectacles, he stares,

"T is the same face that witched him early!

He gropes for his remaining hairs, -
Is this a fleece that feels so curly?

Then from the honeysuckle gray

The oriole with experienced quest
Twitches the fibrous bark away,

The cordage of his hammock-nest,
Cheering his labor with a note
Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o'er the loud and dusty road
The soft gray cup in safety swings,
To brim ere August with its load

Of downy breasts and throbbing
wings,

O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy World drags by

In the old way, because it must,
The bride with heartbreak in her eye,
The mourner following hated dust:
Thy duty, winged flame of Spring,
Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

Oh, happy life, to soar and sway
Above the life by mortals led,
Singing the merry months away,

Master, not slave of daily bread,

Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

PALINODE. DECEMBER.

Like some lorn abbey now, the wood
Stands roofless in the bitter air;
In ruins on its floor is strewed

The carven foliage quaint and rare,
And homeless winds complain along
The columned choir once thrilled with

song.

And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise

The thankful oriole used to pour, Swing'st empty while the north winds chase

Their snowy swarms from Labrador: But, loyal to the happy past,

I love thee still for what thou wast.

Ah, when the Summer graces flee

From other nests more dear than thou, And, where June crowded once, I see

Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; When springs of life that gleamed and gushed

Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed;

When our own branches, naked long,

The vacant nests of Spring betray, Nurseries of passion, love, and song

That vanished as our year grew gray; When Life drones o'er a tale twice told O'er embers pleading with the cold,

I'll trust, that, like the birds of Spring,
Our good goes not without repair,
But only flies to soar and sing

Far off in some diviner air,
Where we shall find it in the calms
Of that fair garden 'neath the palms.

A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS.

IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER.

SOMETIMES come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Over his deep mind muses, as when o'er awestricken ocean Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder;

Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, Seeming to wait till, gradually wid'ning from far-off horizons,

Piling the deeps up, heaping the gladhearted surges before it, Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, Swaying the listener's fantasy hither and thither like driftweed."

BIRTHDAY VERSES. WRITTEN IN A CHILD'S ALBUM.

T was sung of old in hut and hall How once a king in evil hour Hung musing o'er his castle wall, And, lost in idle dreams, let fall Into the sea his ring of power.

Then, let him sorrow as he might,
And pledge his daughter and his throne
To who restored the jewel bright,
The broken spell would ne'er unite;
The grim old ocean held its own.

Those awful powers on man that wait,
On man, the beggar or the king,
To hovel bare or hall of state
A magic ring that masters fate
With each succeeding birthday bring.

Therein are set four jewels rare:
Pearl winter, summer's ruby blaze,
Spring's emerald, and, than all more fair,
Fall's pensive opal, doomed to bear
A heart of fire bedreamed with haze.

To him the simple spell who knows
The spirits of the ring to sway,
Fresh power with every sunrise flows,
And royal pursuivants are those
That fly his mandates to obey.

But he that with a slackened will
Dreams of things past or things to be,