"WE LIVE IN DEEDS, NOT YEARS; IN THOUGHTS, NOT BREATHS."—BAILEY.

DEATH THE LEVEller.

Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man-whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night.

The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entombed in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;

The flight is past-and man forgot.

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(HENRY KING, Bishop of Chichester, a religious poet of great sweetness, born 1591, died October 1, 1669.]

"LIVES OF GREAT MEN ALL REMIND US, WE CAN MAKE OUR LIVES SUBLIME."-H. W. LONGFELLOW.

DEATH THE LEVELLER.

HE glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

"LIFE, LIKE THEIR BIBLES, COOLLY MEN TURN O'ER."-YOUNG.

"THE ETERNAL SURGE OF TIME AND TIde rolls on, AND BEARS AFAR OUR BUbbles."-lorD BYRON.

"A DEATH-LIKE SLEEP, A GENTLE WAFTING TO IMMORTAL LIFE."-JOHN MILTON.

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THOU HAST ALL SEASONS FOR THINE OWN, O DEATH!"-MRS. HEMANS.

"LOVE WARMS WHERE DEATH WITHERS, DEATH BLIGHTS WHERE LOVE BLOOMS."-LORD LYTTON."

Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds:

Your heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

[J. SHIRLEY, a dramatist, born 1596, died 1666. The song which we extract from the play of "The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses," is said to have been a great favourite with Charles II.]

"GIVE ME FROM CARES A SURE RETREAT."-NORRIS.

L'ALLEGRO.

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TRUE FREEDOM IS IN THE MIND.

TONE walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage:

If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free;

Angels alone, that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty.

[Richard LoveLACE, a cavalier-poet, born 1618, died 1658. His poetical works consist of odes, sonnets, and songs.]

"MAN'S FORM. . . . BUT BORROWS ALL ITS GRANDEUR FROM ITS SOUL."-WILLIAM COWPER.

"MY MYNDE TO ME A KINGDOME IS, AND IT EXCELLS ALL OTHER BLISSE."-GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

L'ALLEGRO.

TRAIGHT mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
While the landscape round it measures:
Russet lawns and fallow gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their sav'ry dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses:

"TO ALL MEN FREEDOM SOLACE Gives."-BARBOUR.

"GOD DOTH NOT NEED EITHER MAN'S WORK, OR HIS OWN GIFTS."-JOHN MILTON.

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"FAME IS NO PLANT THAT GROWS ON MORTAL SOIL."-MILTON.

L'ALLEGRO.

And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead.

Sometimes, with secure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,

When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.

Till the livelong daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the juncates ate;
She was pinched and pulled, she said,
And he, by friar's lantern led;
Tells how the grudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had threshed the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And, cropful, out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whisp'ring winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of Peace high triumphs hold,

"THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT."-MILTON.

"LEARN THOU TO KNOW, TOWARD SOLID GOOD WHAT LEADS THE NEAREST WAY."-MILTON.

"THEN DOES A SABLE CLOUD TURN FORTH HER SILVER LINING ON THE NIGHT."-JOHN MILTON.

"HE THAT HAS LIGHT WITHIN HIS OWN CLEAR BREAST

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And Pomp, and Feast, and Revelry,
With Mask and antique Pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learnèd sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning;
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.

[JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674, our greatest epic poet and one of our finest prose writers, author of "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained," "Comus," "Samson Agonistes," Areopagitica," and other noble works in prose and poetry. We extract the above from the fine pastoral of "L'Allegro."]

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MAY SIT IN THE CENTRE, AND ENJOY BRIGHT DAY."-MILTON.

"TAUGHT BY THE HEAVENLY MUSE, STORIED OF OLD IN HIGH IMMORTAL verse."-JOHN MILTON.