The birds and beasts are all
Melted at her sad call;

But Philomela, from a neighboring bush
Adding her grief to her,

Such plaintive numbers pours,

Bids from her throat such thrilling notes to gush,

And from her soul such woes she calls,

That drowned in liquid music down she dying falls.

Sad Ariadne's grief

Found in the song relief,

And half in listening she forgot her woes; But when she saw her slain

By her excess of pain,

Envying the bird that thus her grief could close,

She hied her homewards to her cave,

You may go search Time's kingdom over,
A peace you never shall discover
So full, so true.'

I smiled and bending down did close
Eyes that in fond remonstrance rose
With kisses sweet.

I said: 'No girl that ever pressed
Into a lover's happy breast

Since heart first beat,

'But did esteem herself the first;
And thought no babe was ever nursed
In such sweet rest.'
Yet still she would not be denied,
But shook her shining head and cried,
'None e'er so blest!'"

The following exists only as fragment,

brave."

Even more perfect is Love's Creed. If we sought for a parallel to it, we should be obliged to turn to Goethe in order to find any analogous combination of an almost Catullian form with an ethereal grace and tenderness of spirit.

"Sitting once with my beloved,

When our inmost hearts were moved
With love and joy,

She leaned her head upon my breast,
And, 'Oh!' she said, a girl so blest!
Darling boy!

'Since first the rolling world went round,
Upon its face was never found

As this of thine.

"Upon the reedy margin of the shore,
Shallow and waste, I stand,

And hear far Ocean's low continuous roar
Over the flats and sand.

The wide, gray sky hangs low above the verge,
No white-winged sea-bird flies;
No sound, save the eternal-sounding surge,
With equal fall and rise.

While the salt sea-wind whispers in my ears,
Fitful and desolate,

I seem absolved from the departed years,
Not grieved, and not elate."

The Sonnets alone would, as it seems to us, be sufficient to stamp the writer as one of the company of poets who deserve to be remembered, though their words may be few.

The following triad can hardly fail to command admiration :

I.

"If the first meaning of imagined words
Had not been dulled by long promiscuous use,
And their fine sympathies and nice accords
Lost by misapplication or abuse;

Or if, within the breasts of those that choose To read these lines, hung those responsive chords

Quick to appropriate what sound affords
Of most deep meaning, and touch hidden clues,
Then might I from our English treasury,
Rich and abounding in poetic speech,
Choose out some phrase whereby to picture
thee,

Or come as near thee as my thought can reach ;
For I, bright soul, can show thee in my line
No more than painter limn the Child divine.

II.

Then would I say, thou hadst a shape of

beauty,

And countenance both shamefast and serene:

rose,

Were trash thy unregretful bounty chose

Before loved feet for softness to be strewed.
Such were thy mortal temperings. Above
those,

Perfect, unstained, celestial, the clear brood
Of thy divine affections rose; white congress,
With brows devout and upward-winging eyes,
At whose graced feet sacred Humility lies;
Truthfulness, Patience, Wisdom, Gentleness,
Faith, Hope, and Charity, the golden three,
And Love which casts out fear-this was the
sum of thee."

We must not omit to cite an instance of the melancholy depth to be found in some parts of the series, noticing at the same time the characteristic manner in which gloom as well as cheerfulness is set forth through the medium of a beautiful artistic image:

From day to day his sickling, chiding in vain
His unused sunshine and unwise delays.
Thus when I see this bright youth aged in

tears,

With bitter drops I wash my wasting prime,
And sadly see mine own unharvested years
In the unprofited past their dark hours wave,
And the great visions of my early time
Wax fainter, and my face grows to the grave."

There is a quiet strength, we think, in all which we have quoted, without which nothing is really graceful in any high sense. Grace implies a certain elasticity -a certain natural tendency to the erect -and an easy, unconstrained movement within the limits of natural power; and these qualities eminently belong to Mr. Roscoe's poems. We conclude our notice with the short piece which the editor has placed at the close of the Minor Poems, and which may fitly conclude any notice of the poet's works or life.

SYMBOLS OF VICTORY.

Yellow leaves on the ash-tree,
Soft glory in the air,

And the streaming radiance of sunshine
On the leaden clouds over there.

At a window a child's mouth smiling,
Overhung with tearful eyes
At the flying rainy landscape

And the sudden opening skies.
Angels hanging from heaven,

A whisper in dying ears,
And the promise of great salvation
Shining on mortal fears.

A dying man on his pillow,

Whose white soul fled to his face,
Puts on her garment of joyfulness,
And stretches to Death's embrace.
Passion, rapture, and blindness,
Yearning, aching, and fears,
And Faith and Duty gazing
With steadfast eyes upon tears.

I see, or the glory blinds me
Of a soul divinely fair,
Peace after great tribulation,
And Victory hung in the air."