My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild bird sing,

And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!

And, woodman, leave the spot;
While I've a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not!

GEORGE P. MORRIS.

REVELRY IN INDIA.

WE meet 'neath the sounding rafter, And the walls around are bare; As they echo the peals of laughter

It seems that the dead are there. But stand to your glasses steady,

We drink to our comrades' eyes; Quaff a cup to the dead alreadyAnd hurrah for the next that dies!

Not here are the goblets flowing,

Not here is the vintage sweet; 'Tis cold, as our hearts are growing, And dark as the doom we meet. But stand to your glasses steady, And soon shall our pulses rise; A cup to the dead already—

Hurrah for the next that dies!

Not a sigh for the lot that darkles,

Not a tear for the friends that sink; We'll fall, 'midst the wine-cup's sparkles, As mute as the wine we drink. So stand to your glasses steady,

'Tis in this that our respite lies; One cup to the dead already

Hurrah for the next that dies!

Time was when we frowned at others,
We thought we were wiser then;
Ha! ha! let those think of their mothers,
Who hope to see them again.
No! stand to your glasses steady,
The thoughtless are here the wise;
A cup to the dead already-

Hurrah for the next that dies!

There's many a hand that's shaking,
There's many a cheek that's sunk;
But soon, though our hearts are breaking,
They'll burn with the wine we've drunk.
So stand to your glasses steady,

'Tis here the revival lies;

A cup to the dead already

Hurrah for the next that dies!

There's a mist on the glass congealing,
'Tis the hurricane's fiery breath;
And thus does the warmth of feeling
Turn ice in the grasp of death.
Ho! stand to your glasses steady;
For a moment the vapor flies;
A cup to the dead already-
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Who dreads to the dust returning?
Who shrinks from the sable shore,
Where the high and haughty yearning
Of the soul shall sing no more?
Ho! stand to your glasses steady!
This world is a world of lies;
A cup to the dead already-
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Cut off from the land that bore us,
Betrayed by the land we find,
Where the brightest have gone before us,
And the dullest remain behind-
Stand, stand to your glasses steady!
'Tis all we have left to prize;

A cup to the dead already

And hurrah for the next that dies! BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his

head,

And we far away on the billow.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,— But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stoneBut we left him alone with his glory.

CHARLES WOLFE.

MIDSUMMER INVITATION.

PALE student, leave thy cobwebbed dim alcove, And stretch one restful summer's afternoon Thoughtless amidst the thoughtless things of June, Beneath these boughs with light and murmur wove! Drop book and pen, a thrall releaséd rove

The Sisyphean task flung off; impugn

The withered Sphinx-with earth's fresh heart attune:

Thou, man, the origin of evil prove!

O leave that dark soil where the spider delves,
To trap the unwary reasoner in his lair,
And weave oblivious veils round learnéd shelves;
List to the beat of Ariel's happy wings,

And cool thy brain in this balm-laden air;
Here whispered peace shall still thy questionings.
MYRON B. BENTON.

ON THE MOUNTAIN.

ALL else lies far beneath me, or above,
And I, between two worlds, uncertain stand;
With eyes uplifted to a vision grand,
Yet without power to soar or upward move.
The steps to heaven are builded of our love,
And mine, alas, so timid on the land

Could never find the way without His hand. Naught have I in my heart by which to prove My right to something I've not found below

Except this constant, strong desire to rise; It seems so strange the higher up we goThe farther from earth's sinful, suffering cries, That our unworthiness should haunt us so, And wreck us at the gate of Paradise.

MARY AUGUSTA MASON.

PERSONAL POEMS.

A COLLECTION OF SONNETS.

SHAKESPEAR.

OTHERS abide our question.—Thou art free.
We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge! For the loftiest hill
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border, of his base
To the foiled searching of Mortality.

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self

secure,

Didst walk on earth unguessed at-Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.

MILTON.

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower
Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

MILTON.

I PACE the sounding sea-beach and behold,
How the voluminous billows roll and run,
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
All its loose-folding garments into one,
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.

So in majestic cadence rise and fall
The mighty undulations of thy song,
O sightless bard, England's Mæonides,
And ever and anon, high over all

Uplifted a ninth wave, superb and strong, Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE POET OF HUMAN LIFE.

SILENCE and Night sequestered thee in vain! Oblivion's threats thou proudly couldst defy. Thou art not dead-supreme souls do not die: One small world's range no longer could constrain That strong-winged spirit of its freedom fain—

New stars, new lives thy fearless quest would try: Our baffled vision may not soar so high

We mourn as loss thine infinite, great gain.

Yet keen of sight, to whom men's souls lay bare,
Stripped clean of shams, unclothed of all disguise.
Revealed to thee as if at each soul's birth
Thou hadst been nigh to stamp it foul or fair-
Why shouldst thou seek new schools to make
thee wise,

Heir of heaven's secrets even while on earth!
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THOU wast not robbed of wonder when youth fled,
But still the bud had promise to thine eyes,
And beauty was not sundered from surprise,
And reverent, as reverend, was thy head.
Thy life was music, and thou mad'st it ours,

Not thine, crude scorn of gentle household things;
And yet thy spirit had the sea-bird's wings,
Nor rested long among the chestnut flowers.

Spain's coast of charm and all the North Sea's cold

Thou knewest, and thou knewest the soul of eld, And dusty scroll and volume we beheld To gold transmuted-not to hard-wrought gold, But that clear shining of the eastern air, When Helios rising shakes the splendor of his hair.

HELEN GRAY CONE.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

"Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse!
. a hidden ground

Of thought and of austerity within."

MATTHEW ARNOLD, Austerity of Poetry.

AUSTERE, sedate, the chisel in his hand,
He carved his statue from a flawless stone,

That faultless verse, whose earnest undertone
Echoes the music of his Grecian land.

Like Sophocles on that Ægean strand

He walked by night, and watched life's sea alone, Amid a temperate, not the tropic zone,

Girt round by cool waves and a crystal sand.

And yet the world's heart in his pulses stirred
He looked abroad across life's wind-swept plain,
And many a wandering mariner has heard
His warning hail, and as the blasts increase,
Has listened, till he passed the reefs again,
And floated safely in his port of Peace.

WILLIAM P. ANDREWS.

ON THE DEATH OF PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
HUSHED now, forever, that beloved voice
All craved to hear-heard but within my soul,
Across those mighty water-worlds that roll
'Twixt two great earth-worlds. Only death destroys,
In souls unstained as his, those stainless joys
That come to hearts at rest in love's control;
Though round him shone the singer's aureole,
His mighty heart was simple as a boy's.
His pine woods felt him, and his loved winds blow,
For requiem, round his more than palace home.
Dumb the King's mortal lips, for aye; but, lo!

Through what he wrote the soul is never dumb, Though the stars, wheeling proudly, seem to know That he who loved them to his own is come. PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.

WHEN JUNE SHALL COME AGAIN.

TO EMILY PFEIFFER,

THESE are the weeping moments of the year.
Earth weareth her gray mantle wrapped around,
And ever pensive looketh on the ground
That she may watch the daffodils appear;
When, knowing that her loved one, Spring, draws

near

She'll don her kirtle green, with pale buds crowned

And laugh with joy, until the echoes bound With "Roses! Roses of full June are here."