For in the world, which is not ours, They said
"Let us make man" and that which should be man,
From that one light no man can look upon,
Drew to this shore lit by the suns and moons
And all the shadows. O dear Spirit, half-lost
In thine own shadow and this fleshy sign
That thou art thou—who wailest being born
And banish'd into mystery, and the pain
Of this divisible-indivisible world
Among the numerable-innumerable
Sun, sun, and sun, thro' finite-infinite space
In finite-infinite time-our mortal veil
And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One,
Who made thee unconceivably thyself
Out of His whole World-self and all in all—
Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape
And ivyberry, choose; and still depart
From death to death thro' life and life, and find
Nearer and ever nearer Him, who wrought
Not Matter, nor the finite-infinite,

But this main miracle, that thou art thou,

With power on thine own, act and on the world.

SONGS FROM THE ANCIENT SAGE.

How far thro' all the bloom and brake
That nightingale is heard!

What power but the bird's could make
This music in the bird?

How summer-bright are yonder skies,
And earth as fair in hue!

And yet what sign of aught that lies
Behind the green and blue ?

But man to-day is fancy's fool

As man hath ever been.

The nameless Power, or Powers, that rule
Were never heard or seen.

What Power but the Years that make
And break the vase of clay,

And stir the sleeping earth, and wake
The bloom that fades away?

What rulers but the Days and Hours
That cancel weal with woe,

And wind the front of youth with flowers,
And cap our age with snow?

Yet wine and laughter friends! and set
The lamp's delight, and call
For golden music, and forget

The darkness of the pall?

The years that make the stripling wise
Undo their work again,

And leave him, blind of heart and eyes,
The last and least of men ;

Who clings to earth, and once would dare
Hell-heat or Arctic cold,

And now one breath of cooler air
Would loose him from his hold;
His winter chills him to the root,
He withers marrow and mind;
The kernel of the shrivell'd fruit
Is jutting thro' the rind;
The tiger spasms tear his chest,
The palsy wags his head :

The wife, the sons, who love him best
Would fain that he were dead;

The griefs by which he once was wrung
Were never worth the while,

The shaft of scorn that once had stung
But wakes a dotard smile.

SELECTIONS FROM LOCKSLEY HALL.

SIXTY YEARS AFTER.

LATE, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts;

Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts,

Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlew's

call,

I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall.

So your happy suit was blasted-she the faultless, the divine; And you liken-boyish babble-this boy-love of yours with mine.

I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past; Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last.

"Curse him!" curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage?

Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard's

age.

Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? yet perhaps she was not

wise;

I remember how you kiss'd the miniature with those sweet

eyes.

In the hall there hangs a painting-Amy's arms about my

neck

Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck.

In my life there was a picture, she that clasped my neck had flown;

I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone.

Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake? You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthier make.

Amy lov'd me, Amy fail'd me, Amy was a timid child;

But your Judith-but your worldling-she had never driven me wild.

She that holds the diamond necklace dearer than the golden

ring,

She that finds a winter sunset fairer than a morn in spring.

She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life, While she vows till death shall part us"; she the would-be widow wife.

She the worldling born of worldlings-father, mother-be content,

Ev'n the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent.

Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground, Lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound.

Cross'd! for once he sail'd the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride;

Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died.

Yet how often I and Amy in the mouldering aisle have stood, Gazing for one pensive moment on that founder of our blood.

There again I stood to-day, and where of old we knelt in prayer,

Close beneath the casement crimson with the shield of Locksley-there,

All in white Italian marble, looking still as if she smiled, Lies my Amy dead in child-birth, dead the mother, dead the child.

Dead-and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband nowI this old white-headed dreamer stoopt and kiss'd her marble brow.

Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate

tears,

Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet's dawning years:

Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall'n away. Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day.

Gone the tyrant of my youth, and mute below the chancelstones,

All his virtues-I forgive them-black in white above his

bones.

Gone the comrade of my bivouac, some in fight against the foe, Some through age and slow diseases, gone as all on earth will go.

Gone with whom for forty years my life in golden sequence

ran,

She with all the charms of woman, she with all the breadth of man,

Strong in will and rich in wisdom, Edith; yet so lowly-sweet, Woman to the inmost heart, and woman to her tender feet,

Very woman of very woman, nurse of ailing body and mind, She that link'd again the broken chain that bound me to my kind.

Here to-day was Amy with me, while I wander'd down the

coast,

Near us Edith's holy shadow, smiling at the slighter ghost.

Gone one sailor son thy father, Leonard early lost at sea;
Thou alone, my boy, of Amy's kin and mine art left to me.

Gone thy tender-natured mother, wearying to be left alone, Pining for the stronger heart that once had beat beside her own.

Gone for ever! Ever? No-for since our dying race began, Ever, ever, and for ever was the leading light of man.

France had shown a light to all men, preach'd a Gospel, all men's good;

Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek’d and slaked the light with blood.

Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begunCrown'd with sunlight-over darkness—from the still unrisen

sun.

On this day and at this hour,

In this gap between the sandhills, whence you see the Locksley

tower,