For he had met her in the wood by chance, And having drunk her beauty's wondering spell,

His heart shook like the pennon of a lance That quivers in a breeze's sudden swell, And thenceforth, in a close-enfolded trance,

From misty golden deep to deep he fell; Till earth did waver and fade far away Beneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay.

A dark proud man he was, whose half-blown youth

Had shed its blossoms even in opening, Leaving a few that with more winning ruth Trembling around grave manhood's stem

might cling,

More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth, Like the fringèd gentian, a late autumn spring :

A twilight nature, braided light and gloom, A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.

A POOR SIMILITUDE.

To call my lady where she stood
"A wild-rose blossom of the wood"
Makes but a poor similitude.

For who by such a sleight would reach
An aim, consumes the worth of speech,
And sets a crimson rose to bleach.

My love, whose store of household sense
Gives duty golden recompense,
And arms her goodness with defence:

The sweet reliance of whose gaze
Originates in gracious ways,

And wins that trust the trust repays :

Whose stately figure's varying grace
Is never seen, unless her face
Turn beaming toward another place :

For such a halo round it glows,
Surprised attention only knows
A lively wonder in repose.

Can flowers that breathe one little day
In odorous sweetness life away,
And wavering to the earth decay,

Have any claim to rank with her,
Warm'd in whose soul impulses stir,
Then bloom to goodness; and aver

Her worth through spheral joys shall move
When suns and systems cease above,
And nothing lives but perfect Love?
Thomas Woolner.

THE BLESSIN' O' GOD MAUN MIX WI'

MY LOVE.

There's kames o' hinnie 'tween my luve's lips, And gowd amang her hair;

Her breists are lapt in a holy veil;

Nae mortal een keek there.

What lips daur kiss, or what han' daur touch,

Or what arm o' love daur span, The hinnie lips, the creamy lufc, Or the waist o' Lady Ann?

WOMAN'S INFLUENCE OVER HER LOVER.

Believe me, the whole course and character of your lovers' lives is in your hands; what you would have them be they shall be, if you do not only desire to have them so, but deserve to have them so; for they are but mirrors in which you will see yourselves imaged. If you are frivolous, they will be so also; if you have no understanding of the scope of their duty, they also will forget it: they will listen--they can listen to no other interpretation of it than that uttered from your lips. Bid them be brave; they will be brave for you: bid them be cowards; and how noble soever they be, they will quail for you. Bid them be wise, and they will be wise for you; mock at their counsel, they will be fools for you: such, and so absolute is your rule over them. You fancy, perhaps, as you have been told so often, that a wife's rule should only be over her husband's house, not over his mind. Ah, no! the true rule is just the reverse of that; a true wife in her husband's house is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of best he can conceive of, it is her part to be; whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth: from her, through all the world's clamours, he must win his praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace.

Ruskin.

THE GLANCE THAT GRACED THE GIFT.
"Ah, one rose,
One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd,
Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips
Less exquisite than thine."

She look'd; but all Suffused with blushes,-neither self-possess'd Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, Divided in a graceful quiet ---paused,

And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound

Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips
For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came,
Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it,
And moved away, and left me, statue-like,
In act to render thanks.

I, that whole day, Saw her no more, although I linger'd there

Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk.

So home I went, but could not sleep for joy,
Reading her perfect features in the gloom,
Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er,
And shaping faithful record of the glance
That graced the giving-such a noise of life
Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice
Call'd to me from the years to come, and such
A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark.
And all that night I heard the watchman peal
The sliding season: all that night I heard
The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours.
The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good,
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings,
Distilling odours on me as they went
To greet their fairer sisters of the East.
Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all,
Made this night thus.
Tennyson.

BELOVED EYES, HOW FULL OF HEAVEN THEY ARE.

Those eyes, those eyes, how full of heaven they are,

When the calm twilight leaves the heaven most holy.

Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star Did ye drink in your liquid melancholy? Tell me, beloved eyes!

Was it from yon lone orb, that ever by

The quiet moon, like Hope on Patience,

hovers;

The star to which hath sped so many a sigh, Since lutes in Lesbos hallow'd it to lovers ? Was that your fount, sweet eye?

Ye sibyl books, in which the truths foretold Inspire the heart, your dreaming priest, with gladness;

Bright alchemists, that turn to thoughts of gold

The leaden cares ye steal away from sadness,

Teach only me, sweet eyes!

Hush! when I ask ye how at length to gain The cell where Love, the sleeper, yet lies hidden,

Loose not those arch lips from their rosy chain,

Be every answer, save your own, for-
bidden-

Feelings are words for eyes!
Lord Lytton.

THE EXULTING LOVER.

Because from all that round thee move, Planets of beauty, strength, and grace, I am elected to thy love,

And have my name in thy embrace, I wonder all men do not see

The crown that thou hast set on me.

Because when, prostrate at thy feet,

Thou didst emparadise my pain,—Because thy heart in mine has beat, Thy head within my hands has lain,— I am transfigured by that sign, Into a being like to thine.

The mirror from its glossy plain

Receiving, still returns the light, And being generous of its gain,

Augments the very solar might :
What unreflected light would be,
Is just thy spirit without me.

Thou art the flame whose rising spire
In the dark air sublimely sways,
And I the tempest that swift fire

Gathers at first, and then obeys :
All that was thine ere we were wed
Have I by right inherited.

Is life a stream? Then from thy hair
One rosebud in the current fell,
And straight it turn'd to crystal there,
As adamant immoveable :
Its stedfast place shall know no more
The sense of after and before.

Is life a plant? The king of years

Is mine, nor ill nor good can bring ;Mine grows no more, no more it fears Ev'n the brushing of his wing: With sheathed scythe I see him go,— I have no flowers that he can mow. Lord Houghton.

PRUDENCE IN LOVE.

When it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an action of life like unto a stratagem of war-wherein a man can err but once. If thy estate be good, match near home and at leisure; if weak, far off and quickly. Inquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth. Let her not be poor, how generous soever; for a man can buy nothing in the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely creature altogether for wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and loathing in thee. Lord Burleigh.

We stood together again to-day,
Ah me!
Just where he kiss'd into Yes my Nay,
Ah me!
He hung his head and had nought to say.
Mignon's eyes have a sunny shine,
Ah me!
And Mignon's cheeks are fresher than mine,
Ah me!
For I get paler because I pine.

The dove has forgotten his last year's nest,
Ah me!
And it's his new love he loves the best,
Ah me!
My heart lies like a stone in my breast.
Howard Glyndon.