A SERENADE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF P. DUPONT.

A

LL roses are alike to me,

Alike to me the myriad flowers, That May-time, in its sunny glee,

Spreads on the valleys and the bowers; But in the garland of young girls, Which glows in fragrance to the sun, I worship, and I see but one,

My pearl of flowers-my flower of pearls!

Each planet and each wandering star,
Dancing in circles in the skies,
Lulls some young fool to dreams afar,
But all are sisters in my eyes;

For all the lights that round us shine,

All that a maddened brain romances, Are nothing, darling, to the glances From those soft, loving eyes of thine.

The nightingale may sing and die,

And still on that same linden-tree
Another bird will love and sigh,

Before the first has ceased to be.
The sweetest songs we mortals hear
In this dull, struggling world below,
All fail to soothe our grief, our woe,
Save thy soft, thrilling accents, dear.

Let all the sweet flowers fade away.
Let all the song-birds die of love,

The cheery light forsake the day,

The stars fade in the heavens above;
Rather than that my rose of girls,

My star of gold, my passionate song, Should suffer half a moment's wrongMy pearl of flowers, my flower of pearls! Translation of Harry Curwen.

ALL-ALL IS LOVE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.

O idealize our very dreams-
Women were given us for this,
And every power in nature seems
To teach us how to love and kiss.

Great Love for girdle proudly owns
The deep sea, and the azure vast—
Piercing ahead we hear his tones,

And in dim vistas of the past;

While all that breathes with beauty laden
Pays Love its tribute for an hour;

For if God had not formed the maiden,
He surely had not formed the flower.

Lying on beauty's bosom lightly

The diamond sheds its choicest hue;
Would blue sapphires sparkle brightly
If blue eyes did not sparkle too?

The perfumed breezes from the south,
The passion-flower, the asphodel,

The bud with rosy, opening mouth

Have all their tale of love to tell;

Then come, my sweet, since all is love,
Whether we look that side, or this,
Around, beneath us, or above,

Come, darling, prove it with a kiss.

Translation of Harry Curwen.

MY MISTRESS.

FROM THE FRENCH OF AUGUSTE BRIZEUX.

N my mistress I loved naught at first but her beauty,

IN

The rosy fresh mouth to which smiles seemed a duty, The shoulder's contour smooth and shining like gold, And the lithe supple figure that the mirror adorning, Bent at each step, as under wings of the morning

Bend willows o'er waves their own grace to behold.

I knew then the beauty: naught to me it imported,
If a soul in her bright eyes, when spoke she, disported
Under the long-penciled and dark Arab brows,
Happy, happy to breathe the chaste air her surrounding,
And to hear the pure crystal of her accent resounding,
I moved in a dream when we mingled our vows.

Pardon if thou canst! Lo, at thy feet I cry, pardon !
When pale and heart-broken in the old walled garden

More feeble than thou, woman, more feeble by far,
I came all in tears, thy aid-thy counsel to borrow,
Then woke thy hid beauty in the midst of my sorrow,

And thy soul in its grandeur shone out like a star!

O tears! O deep sighs! O love's mystic story! Women, to charm us, have two crowns as their glory, A visible beauty and a beauty unseen— Beings twice-gifted! souls all-powerful and tender! Our hearts and our wishes to them we surrender; Firm-bound in their fetters, we own them our queen. Translation of Toru Dutt.

A

THE PRAISE OF WOMAN.

FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

LL honor to women !—they soften and leaven

The cares of the world with the roses of heaven

The ravishing fetters of love they entwine;

Their charms from the world's eye modestly veiling,
They foster and nourish, with care never failing,

The fire eternal of feelings divine.

Man's wild force, in constant motion,
Spurns the bounds by truth assigned;

And, on passion's stormy ocean,

To and fro is tossed his mind.

Peace his bosom visits never,

As he heaps up scheme on scheme,
And through space pursues forever
Each vain phantom of his dream.

But with her sweet look, so soft and enchaining,
Woman, the fugitive gently restraining,

Summons him back to the regions of earth;
The daughter of Nature, with meekness unshaken.

The home of her mother has never forsaken-
Has ever been true to the place of her birth.

Man, the torrent sternly breasting,

Spends his days in ceaseless strife; Never pausing, never resting,

Wild he treads the path of life. All his plans to ruin bringing,

Ne'er his changing wish grows cold, When destroyed, again upspringing, Like the Hydra's heads of old.

But in a gentler sphere passing her hours,
Woman plucks ever the moment's sweet flowers,
Lovingly tends them with fostering care;
Freer than man, though less wide her dominion,
Soaring above him on wisdom's bright pinion,
Glitt'ring in poesy's circle so fair.

Selfishness and pride combining,

Man's cold bosom ne'er can prove,
Round a fond heart fondly twining.
All the heavenly bliss of love.
Soul communion never feeling,
Tears to him no balm impart,
Life's hard conflicts only steeling
Sterner still his rugged heart.

But as when softly to Zephyr replying,

Æolus' harp gently breathes forth its sighing,

The soft soul of woman its sighs breathes forth too;

At the sad tale of misery tenderly grieving,