My lodging is on the cold ground,
And very hard is my fare;

But that which troubles me most is
The unkindness of my dear;
Yet still I cry, O turn, love,

And I prithee, love, turn to me,
For thou art the man that I long for,
And, alack! what remedy!

I'll crown thee with a garland of straw then,
And I'll marry thee with a rush ring;
My frozen hopes shall thaw then,

And merrily we will sing.

O turn to me, my dear love,

And I prithee, love, turn to me,

For thou art the man who alone can'st
Procure my liberty.

But if thou wilt harden thy heart still,
And be deaf to my pitiful moan,
Then I must endure the smart still,
And lie in my straw all alone.

Yet still I cry, O turn love,

And I prithee, love, turn to me,
For thou art the man that alone art
The cause of my misery.

PLATONIC LOVERS.

How sad and dismal sound the farewells which Poor lovers take, whom destiny disjoins, Although they know their absence will be short; And when they meet again how musical

And sweet are all the mutual joys they breathe! Like birds, who when they see the weary sun Forsake the world, they lay their little heads Beneath their wings, to ease that weight which his Departure adds unto their grief.

'Tis true, my love: But when they see that bright Perpetual traveller return, they warm

And air their feathers at his beams, and sing
Until their gratitude hath made them hoarse.

Her heedless innocence as little knew

The wounds she gave, as those from Love she took; And Love lifts high each secret shaft he drew; Which at their stars he first in triumph shook.

Love he had lik'd but never lodg'd before;
But finds him now a bold unquiet guest;
Who climbs to windows when we shut the door;
And, enter'd, never lets the master rest.

Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart

Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire
To heaven, though bashfully, she does impart;
And to her mother in the heavenly choir.

If I do love (said she), that love, O Heaven!
Your own disciple, Nature, bred in me;
Why should I hide the passion you have given,
Or blush to show effects which you decree?

This said, her soul into her breast retires;

With Love's vain diligence of heart she dreams Herself into possession of desires,

And trusts unanchor'd Hope in fleeting streams:

She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind
In their pacific sea shall wrinkles make;
That still her lowliness shall keep him kind,
Her cares keep him asleep, her voice awake.

She thinks if ever anger in him sway

(The youthful warrior's most excused disease), Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay The accidental rage of winds and seas.

Thus to herself in day-dreams Birtha talks:

The duke (whose wounds of war are healthful grown), To cure Love's wounds, seeks Birtha where she walks: Whose wandering soul seeks him to cure her own.

JOHN DRYDEN.

Born in Aldwinckle, Northamptonshire, in 1631. Made laureate in 1670, two years after the death of Davenant. Deposed at the Revolution. Died in 1700.

(Reigns of Charles II. and James II.)

'POETRY, to be just to itself, ought always to precede and be the herald of improvement," wrote Longfellow years ago in the pages of the North American Review. How little Dryden's work was the herald of improvement every earnest student of literature feels keenly. All his influence seemed to hasten the downward course of poetry in England. Dryden was neither true to himself nor to his genius. His splendid endowments fitted him to be a dictator to mankind, and he was himself governed by the worst tendencies of his age. A superb reasoner; a critic of learning and ability, possessing powers of satire which have never been surpassed; master of a prose style which was sinewy, flexible, and eloquent, and of a poetical versification remarkable for its clearness, its grace, its command of variations in metre-yet to Dryden there was not

"That sublimer inspiration given

That glows in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page-
The pomp and prodigality of Heaven."

The record of Dryden's life proves that it was clearly his own choice that he missed the highest. The poetical achievement and moral dignity of his great contemporary, Milton, show that a man may, if he choose, emancipate himself from the influences of his age, and stem the tide of its evil. But in Dryden, from first to last, we see a lack of earnestness, of honesty of purpose, of "belief in and devotion to something nobler and more abiding than the present moment and its petulant need."

Without such devotion a man's work cannot be called truly great. And yet, with all Dryden's fatal defects of soul, his intellectual services cannot be ignored:-he has been justly called both the glory and the shame of our literature.

Dryden's grandfather was a baronet; his father a younger son of an ancient and honourable family, whose traditions were all Puritan. Little is known of his childhood, except that he was sturdy and precocious. Sent to Westminster school, he