Above, there gleamed the boundless sky;
Beneath, the boundless ocean sheen;
Between them danced the butterfly,
The spirit-life of this vast scene,

Far out at sea.

The tiny soul then soared away,

Seeking the clouds on fragile wings,

Lured by the brighter, purer ray

Which hope's ecstatic morning brings,

Far out at sea.

Away he sped with shimmering glee!
Scarce seen-now lost-yet onward borne !
Night comes!-with wind and rain-and he
No more will dance before the Morn,

Far out at sea.

He dies unlike his mates, I ween;

Perhaps not sooner, or worse crossed; And he hath felt, thought, known, and seen A larger life and hope-though lost

ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves, and washed it away:
Agayne, I wrote it with a second hand;
But came the tyde, and made my paynes

his

prey.

Vayne man, say'd she, that doest in vayne assay A mortall thing so to immortalize;

For I my selve shall like to this decay,

And eke my name bee wipèd out likewise. Not so, quod I; let baser things devize

To dy in dust, but thou shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall éternize, And in the heavens wryte your glorious name, Where, when as death shall all the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew.

EDMUND SPENSER.

THE POET'S DEATH.

FROM "THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL," CANTO V.

CALL it not vain:-they do not err,
Who say, that when the poet dies,
Mute nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;

Who say tall cliff, and cavern lone,
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distill;
Through his loved groves that breezes sigh
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;
And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave.

Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn
Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale,
Is vocal with the plaintive wail

Of those, who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song,
And, with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.
The maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,
That love, true love, should be forgot,
From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear
Upon the gentle minstrel's bier:
The phantom knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o'er the field he heaped with dead
Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain,
And shrieks along the battle-plain:
The chief, whose antique crownlet long
Still sparkled in the feudal song,
Now, from the mountain's misty throne,
Sees, in the thanedom once his own,
His ashes undistinguished lie,

His place, his power, his memory die:
His groans the lonely caverns fill,
Ilis tears of rage impel the rill;

All mourn the minstrel's harp unstrung,
Their name unknown, their praise unsung.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THY SONGS AND MINE.

SING thou my songs for me when I am dead!
Soul of my soul, some day thou wilt awake
To see the morning on the hilltops break,
And the far summits flame with rosy red-
But I shall wake not, though above my head

Armies should thunder; nor for Love's sweet sake,

Though he the tenderest pilgrimage should make

Where I am lying in my grassy bed.

I shall be silent, with my song half sung;

I shall be dumb, with half the story told;

I shall be mute, leaving the half unsaid. Take thou the harp ere it be yet unstrung— Wake thou the lyre ere yet its chords be cold

Sing thou my songs, and thine, when I am dead!

JULIA C. R. DORR.

THE SHARING OF THE EARTH.

"TAKE the world," cried the God from his heaven To men-"I proclaim you its heirs ;

To divide it amongst you 't is given:
You have only to settle the shares."

Each takes for himself as it pleases,

Old and young have alike their desire:

The harvest the husbandman seizes;

Through the wood and the chase sweeps the squire.

The merchant his warehouse is locking;
The abbot is choosing his wine;
Cries the monarch, the thoroughfare blocking,
"Every toll for the passage is mine!"

All too late, when the sharing was over,
Comes the poet, he came from afar;

Nothing left can the laggard discover,
Not an inch but its owners there are.

"Woe is me! is there nothing remaining
For the son who best loves thee alone!"
Thus to Jove went his voice in complaining,
As he fell at the Thunderer's throne.

"In the land of thy dreams if abiding,"

Quoth the god, "Can'st thou murmur at me? Where wert thou when the earth was dividing?" "I was," said the poet, "by thee!

"Mine eye by thy glory was captured,
Mine ear by thy music of bliss:

Pardon him whom thy world so enraptured
As to lose him his portion in this!"

"Alas," said the god, "earth is given! Field, forest, and market, and all! What say you to quarters in heaven?

We'll admit you whenever you call!”

From the German of J. C. FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER.
Translation of LORD BULWER-LYTTON.

THE IMMORTALITY OF GENIUS,

ORPHEUS, 't is said, the Thracian lyre-strings sweep

ing,

Stayed the swift stream and soothed the savage brute;

Citharon's rocks, to Thebes spontaneous leaping,
Rose into walls before Amphion's lute.