"GOD KEEPS HIS HOLY MYSTERIES JUST ON THE OUTSIDE OF MAN'S DREAM:-(MRS. BROWNING)

"O DELVED GOLD, THE WAILERS HEAP(BROWNING)

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST.

"Then the young foot-page will run,
Then my lover will ride faster,

Till he kneeleth at my knee:
'I am a duke's eldest son,
Thousand serfs do call me master,
But, O love, I love but thee!'

"He will kiss me on the mouth
Then, and lead me as a lover

Through the crowds that praise his deeds:
And when soul-tied by one troth,

Unto him I will discover

That swan's nest among the reeds."

O STRIFE! O CURSE, THAT O'ER IT FALL!"-BROWNING.

WHILE THEY FLOAT PURE BENEATH HIS EYES, LIKE SWANS ADOWN A STREAM."-MRS. BROWNING.

49

"GOD IS SO GOOD, HE WEARS A FOLD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH ACROSS HIS FACE;....

50

O EARTH, SO FULL OF DREARY NOISES!-(MRS. BROWNING)

BUT STILL I FEEL THAT HIS EMBRACE SLIDES DOWN BY THRILLS."-E. B. BROWNING.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

Ο

ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers',

And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing towards the west-

O MEN, WITH WAILING IN YOUR VOICES!"-MRS. BROWNING.

"WHAT DO WE GIVE TO OUR BELOVED? A LITTLE FAITH, ALL UNDISPROVED."-BROWNING.

66

A HOLIDAY OF MISERABLE MEN-(MRS. E. B. BROWNING)

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in their sorrow
Why their tears are falling so?

The old man may weep for his to-morrow,

Which is lost in Long Ago;

The old tree is leafless in the forest,

The old year is ending with the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy;

"Your old Earth," they say, "is very dreary;
Our young feet," they say, "are very weak;
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary,—
Our grave-rest is very far to seek :

Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children;
For the outside Earth is cold,

And we young ones stand without in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old.”

"True," say the children, "it may happen,
That we die before our time:

Little Alice died last year; her grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.

IS SADDER THAN A BURIAL-DAY OF KINGS."-MRS. BROWNING.

"A LITTLE DUST TO OVERWEEP?

HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP."-MRS. E. B. BROWNING.

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"WHAT IS TRUE, AND JUST, AND HONEST, WHAT IS LOVELY, WHAT IS PURE,-(E. BROWNING)

THE TRUTH IS NOT AFRAID OF HURTING YOU."-BROWNING.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

52

We looked into the pit prepared to take her;

Was no room for any work in the close clay !
From the sleep wherein she lieth none can wake her,

Crying 'Get up, little Alice, it is day!'

If you listen by that grave in sun and shower,

With your ear down, little Alice never cries ;
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes.
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in

The shroud by the kirk-chime.

It is good when it happens,” say the children,
"That we die before our time."

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life as best to have:

They are binding up their hearts, away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.

Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty,

Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows

Like our weeds anear the mine?

Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!

"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces trying to go;
And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.

"EARTH'S FANATICS MAKE HEAVEN'S SAINTS."-BROWNING.

ALL OF PRAISE THAT HATH ADMONISHT, ALL OF VIRTUE SHALL ENDURE."-MRS. BROWNING.

"THE POET HATH THE CHILD'S SIGHT IN HIS BREAST, AND SEES ALL NEW."-MRS. BROWNING.

'THE WORTHIEST POETS HAVE REMAINED UNCROWNED-(BROWNING)

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

53

For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,

Through the coal-dark underground;
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron

In the factories, round and round.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning;

Their wind comes in our faces,

Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,

And the walls turn in their places;

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling-
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day the iron wheels are droning,

And sometimes we could pray,

'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning),
'Stop! be silent for to-day!""

Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth!

Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
Of their tender human youth!

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

Is not all the life God fashions and reveals :

Let them prove their living souls against the notion
That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
Still all day the iron wheels go onward,

Grinding life down from its mark;

And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,

Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to him and pray;

So the Blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day.

TILL DEATH HAS BLEACHED THEIR FOREHEADS TO THE BONE."--IBID.

"WHAT OFTENEST HE HAS VIEWED, HE VIEWS IN THE FIRST GLORY."-MRS. E. B. BROWNING.