"MY LOVE IS THE HOLLY THAT EVER IS GREEN, WHETHER BREEZES ARE BALMY, OR BLASTS ARE KEEN-BENNETT)

BUT DEARER ARE THE CHANGING LEAF.

BABY MAY.

Minutes filled with shadeless gladness,
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness;
Happy smiles and wailing cries,

Crows, and laughs, and tearful eyes;

Lights and shadows swifter borne
Than on wind-swept autumn corn;
Ever some new tiny notion

Making every limb all motion:
Catching up of legs and arms,
Throwings back and small alarms;
Clutching fingers, straight'ning jerks,
Twining feet whose each toe works;
Kickings up and straining risings,
Mother's ever new surprisings;
Hands all wants and looks all wonder,
At all things the heavens under;
Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings,
That have more of love than lovings;
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness that we prize such sinning:
Breakings dire of plates and glasses,
Graspings small at all that passes;
Pullings off of all that's able
To be caught from tray or table:
Silences-small meditations,

Deep as thoughts of cares for nations;
Breaking into wisest speeches
In a tongue that nothing teaches;
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing:
Slumbers-such sweet angel-seemings,
That we'd ever have such dreamings;
Till from sleep we see thee breaking,
And we'd always have thee waking:

AND THE YEAR UPON THE WANE!"-BENNETT.

39

THE SAME IN DAYS SULLEN

AND CHILL, AS WHEN SNOWED WITH BLOSSOMS THE ORCHARDS ARE SEEN."-BENNETT.

"WE LOVE, WE KNOW NOT WHY: WHY WOULD REASON KNOW? AND WHAT CAN WE REPLY?-(W. C. BENNETT)

["Slumbers-such sweet angel-seemings."]
Wealth for which we know no measure,
Pleasure high above all pleasure;
Gladness brimming over gladness,
Joy in care, delight in sadness;
Loveliness beyond completeness,
Sweetness distancing all sweetness;
Beauty all that beauty may be-
That's May Bennett, that's my baby.

[From "Poems: by W. C. Bennett, LL.D.," complete edition.]

A MOMENT WE ARE FREE; A MOMENT SOME SWEET EYES FILL OUR FUTURE WITH SAD SIGHS."-BENNETT.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

[MRS. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, whose maiden name was
Barrett, was born in 1809. It is needless to say that she displayed a broad
deep intellect at an early age, or that it was assiduously cultivated, for she
was only seventeen when she gave to the world her first production, "An
Essay on Mind, and other Poems." This was followed in 1833 by an ad-
mirable translation of the "Prometheus Unbound" of Aeschylus, which
showed how fully and earnestly she had comprehended the inner spirit of the
Greek poetry.
In 1838 appeared "The Seraphim, and other Poems;"
and in 1839, "The Romaunt of the Page," each volume winning for itself
a wider and more enthusiastic public.

About 1840 Miss Barrett had the misfortune to burst a blood-vessel in the

IN HEART I AM A BOY."-WILLIAM C. BENNETT.

"ALL ARE NOT TAKEN; THERE ARE LEFT BEHIND LIVING BELOVEDS."-MRS. E. BROWNING.

"TIS NOT IN MERE DEATH THAT MEN DIE MOST."- -MRS. BROWNING.

lungs; and this accident, followed by a severe domestic calamity, so pros-
trated her that it was some years before she recovered her physical energies.
She lived, confined in a darkened chamber, and knowing of the world with-
out only what she learned from her family and a few devoted friends;
'reading meanwhile almost every book worth reading in almost every lan
guage, studying with ever-fresh delight the great classic authors in the
original, and giving herself, heart and soul, to that poetry of which she
seemed born to be the poetess."

That in this seclusion her imagination had expanded and her judgment ripened was evident from the two volumes of "Poems" published in 1844, which included her lofty but frigid lyrical "Drama of Exile," her exquisite and felicitously-expressed "Vision of Poets," the impassioned "Rhyme of the Duchess May,' "Cowper's Grave," "The Cry of the Children ”—a companion piece for Hood's "Song of the Shirt"-" Bertha in the Lane," "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," and other fervidly thoughtful lyrics and lays which have become permanently incorporated with our English litera

ture.

Having married Robert Browning, the poet, in 1846, our poetess removed to Italy, in whose fluctuating fortunes she felt a keen and overpowering interest to the day of her death. In 1849 she published "Casa Guidi Windows," a poem describing her impressions of the revolution at Florence in 1848, which she had witnessed from the windows of the Casa Guidi Palace. "Aurora Leigh," appeared in 1856. In spite of many faults of style, and greater faults of construction, it is, we think, Mrs. Browning's finest work, in which she enters her most eloquent protests against the world's falsehoods and social conventionalities, and shows herself well able to anatomize and lay bare the secrets of the heart. Unfortunately this "robe of gold" is disfigured by numerous patches of coarse woollen stuff. It is a posy of gorgeous flowers, but wild weeds have been bound up with the same silken string. The metaphysical portions are decidedly the least satisfactory.

Mrs. Browning's last work was entitled "Poems Before Congress," and related to Italian topics. They breathed an enthusiastic love of freedom, and a warm faith in a regenerated Italy. She died on the 29th of June

1861.]

COWPER'S GRAVE.*

T is a place where poets crowned
May feel the heart's decaying;
It is a place where happy saints
May weep amid their praying:

Cowper lies interred in the church of East Dereham, Norfolk.

GOD SET OUR FEET LOW AND OUR FOREHEAD HIGH!"-BROWNING.

"TENDER LOOKS TO BRING, AND MAKE THE DAYLIGHT STILL A HAPPY THING."-E. BROWNING.

"THANK GOD ALL YE WHO SUFFER NOT MORE GRIEF THAN YE CAN WEEP FOR."-MRS. E. BROWNING.

MAKE INDIVIDUAL RIGHT NO GENERAL WRONG."-MRS. BROWNING.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Yet let the grief and humbleness

As low as silence languish :
Earth surely now may give her calm

To whom she gave her anguish.
O poets, from the maniac's tongue
Was poured the deathless singing!
O Christians, at your cross of hope
A hopeless hand was clinging!
O men, this man in brotherhood
Your weary paths beguiling,
Groaned inly while he taught you peace,

And died while ye were smiling!

And now, what time ye all may read,
Through dimming tears his story,
How discord on the music fell,

And darkness on the glory,

And how when, one by one, sweet sounds
And wandering lights departed,
He wore no less a loving face
Because so broken-hearted,—

He shall be strong to sanctify
The poet's high vocation,

And bow the meekest Christian down

In meeker adoration;

Nor ever shall he be, in praise,
By wise or good forsaken,

Named softly as the household name
Of one whom God hath taken.
With quiet sadness and no gloom
I learn to think upon him,

With meekness that is gratefulness
To God whose heaven hath won him ;

66 WIPE OUT EARTH'S FURROWS OF THE THINE AND MINE. -IBID.

TEARS! WHAT ARE TEARS? THE BABE WEEPS IN ITS COT, THE MOTHER SINGING."-MRS. BROWNING.

"WHAT ARE WE SET ON EARTH FOR? SAY, TO TOIL; NOR SEEK TO LEAVE."-MRS. BROWNING.

66 WHOEVER LIVES TRUE LIFE WILL LOVE TRUE LOVE."-BROWNING.

"THY TENDING OF THE VINES, FOR ALL THE HEAT OF THE DAY, TILL IT DECLINES."-IBID.