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Foot-prints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er Life's solemn main,
A fortoru and shipwreck d brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heat for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

The Ladder of St. Augustine.

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We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways. that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and
kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent, and downcast
eyes.

We may discern-unseen before-
A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past

As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If. rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.

God's-Acre.

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls.
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life; alas! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan. the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude ploughshare. Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;

This is the field and Acre of our God.

This is the place where human harvests grow!

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Autumn in America.

With what a glory comes and goes the year!
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out,
And when the silver habit of the clouds
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with
A sober gladness the old year takes up
His bright inheritance of golden fruits,
A pomp ani pageant fill the splendid scene.

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillowed clouds.
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird.
Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales
The gentle wind. a sweet and passion: te wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned,
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leafed,
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside aweary Through the trees
The golden robin moves The purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,

A winter bird comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch-hazel; whilst aloud
From cottage roofs the warbling blue-b.id sings;
And merrily, with oft repeated stroke,
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.

Oh, what a glory doth this world put on
For him who with a fervent heart goes forth,
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well performed. and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings:
He shall so hear the so emn hymn, that Death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go

To his long resting-place without a tear

A cold, uninterrupted rain. That washed each southern pane,

A Rainy Day.

Full late they slept. They did not hear
window- The challenge of Sir Chanticleer.
Who on the empty threshing-floor,
Disdainful of the rain outside.
Was strutting with a martial stride,
As if upon his thigh he wore
The famous broadsword of the Squire,
And said. Behold me, and admire!'
Only the Poet seemed to hear

And made a river of the road;
A sea of mist that overflowed
The house, the barns, the gilded vane,
And drowned the upland and the plain.
Through which the oak-trees, broad and
high.

Like phantom ships went drifting by;
Aud. hidden behind a watery screen,
The sun unseen. or only seen
As a faint pallor in the sky-
Thus cold and colourless and gray,
The morn of that antumnal day,
As if reluctant to begin,

Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,
And all the guests that in it lay.

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And stopped beside the tavern door;
A moment stopped, and then again,
With crack of whip and bark of dog,

Plunged forward through the sea of fog,
And all was silent as before-
All silent save the dripping rain.

CHARLES SWAIN.

A native of Manchester, and carrying on business there as an engraver, CHARLES SWAIN (1803-1874) became known as a poet in the pages of the 'Literary Gazette' and other literary journals. His collected works are: Metrical Essays,' 1827; The Mind and other Poems,' 1831; Dramatic Chapters, Poems, and Songs,' 1847; 'English Melodies,' 1849; Art and Fashion,' 1863; and · Songs and Ballads,' 1868. Some of Mr. Swain's songs and domestic poemswhich are free from all mysticism and exaggerated sentiment-have been very popular both at home and abroad. They have great sweetness, tenderness, and melody.

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The Death of the

There are noble heads bowed down and

pale,

Deep sounds of woe arise,

And tears flow fast around the couch
Where a wounded warrior lies;
The hue of death is gathering dark
Upon his lofty brow,

And the arm of might and valour falls,
Weak as an infant's now.

I saw him 'mid the battling hosts,
Like a bright and leading star,
Where banner, helm, and falchion gleam-
ed,

And flew the bolts of war.
When, in his plenitude of power,
He trod the Holy Land,

I saw the routed Saracens

Flee from his blood-dark brand.

I saw him in the banquet hour
Forsake the festive throng,

To seek his favourite minstrel's haunt,
And give his soul to song;
For dearly as he loved renown,

He loved that spell-wrought strain
Which bade the brave of perished days
Light Conquest's torch again.

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lance,

Swept by his visioned sight!

But battle shout and waving plume,
The drum's heart-stirring beat,
The glittering pomp of prosperous war,
The rush of million feet,
The magic of the minstrel's song,
Which told of victories o'er,
Are sights and sounds the dying king
Shall see shall hear no more!

It was the hour of deep midnight,
In the dim and quiet sky,

When, with sable cloak and 'broidered
pall,

A funeral train swept by;
Dull and sad fell the torches' glare

On many a stately crest-
They bore the noble warrior king
To his last dark home of rest.

SYDNEY DOBELL-ALEXANDER SMITH-GERALD MASSEY.

Under the pseudonym of Sydney Vendys,' SYDNEY DOBELL (1824-1874) published several elaborate poetical works. He was born at Cranbrook, Kent, in 1824, but spent the greater part of his youth in the neighbourhood of Cheltenham, where his father was engaged in business as a wine-merchant. In his intervals of leisure the young poet -whose regular employment was in his father's counting-house-contrived to write a dramatic poem, 'The Roman,' published in 1850. In 1854 appeared Balder, Part the First;' in 1855, Sonnets on the

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War,' written in conjunction with Mr. A. Smith; and in 1856, 'England in Time of War.' A man of cultivated intellectual tastes and benevolence of character, Mr. Dobell seems to have taken up some false or exaggerated theories of poetry and philosophy, and to have wasted fine thoughts and conceptions on uncongenial themes. The great error of some of our recent poets is the want of simplicity and nature. They heap up images and sentiments, the ornaments of poetry, without aiming at order, consistency, and the natural development of passion or feeling. We have thus many beautiful and fanciful ideas, but few complete or correct poems. Part of this defect is no doubt to be attributed to the youth of the poets, for taste and judgment come slowly even where genius is abundant, but part also is due to neglect of the old masters of song. In Mr. Dobell's first poem, however, are some passages of finished blank

verse:

The Italian Brothers.

I had a brother:

We were twin shoots from one dead stem. He grew
Nearer the sun, and ripened into beauty;

And I, within the shadow of my thoughts,

Pined at his side and loved him. He was brave,

Gallant and free. I was the silent slave

Of fancies; neither laughed, nor fought, nor played,

And loved not morn nor eve for very trembling

At their long wandering shades. In childhood's sports

He won for me, and I looked on aloof;

And when perchance I heard him called my brother,
Was proud and happy. So we grew together,

Within our dwelling by the desert plain,

Where the roe leaped,

And from his icy hills the frequent wolf

Gave chivalry to slaughter. Here and there

Rude heaps, that had been cities, clad the ground

With history. And far and near, where grass
Was greenest, and the unconscious goat browsed free,
The teeming soil was sown with desolations,
As though Time-striding o'er the field be reaped-
Warmed with the spoil, rich droppings for the gleaners
Threw round his harvest way. Frieze, pedestal,
Pillars that bore through years the weight of glory,
And take their rest. Tombs, arches, monuments,
Vainly set up to save a name, as though
The eternal saved the perishable; urns,

Which winds had emptied of their dust, but left

Full of their immortality. In shrouds

Of reverent leaves, rich works of wondrous beauty
Lay sleeping-like the Children in the Wood-
Fairer than they.

The Ruins of Ancient Rome.

Upstood

The boar unconscious walls, bisson and bare,
Like an old man deaf, blind, and gray, in whom
The years of old stand in the sun. and murmur
Of childhood and the dead. From parapets

Where the sky rests, from broken niches-each
More than Olympus-for gods dwelt in them-
Below from senatorial haunts and seats
Imperial. where the ever-passing fates

Wore out the stone, strange hermit birds croaked forth
Sorrowful sounds, like watchers on the height
Crying the hours of ruin. When the clouds
Dress d every myrtle on the walls in mourning,
With calm prerogative the eternal pile
Impassive shone with the unearthly light
Of immortality When conquering suns
Triumphed in jubilant earth, it stood ont dark
With thoughts of ages: like some mighty captive
Upon his death-bed in a Christian land,

And lying, through the chant of psalm and creed,
Unshriven and stern, with peace upon his brow,
And on his lips strange gods.

Rank weeds and grasses,
Careless and nodding, grew, and asked no leave,

Where Romans trembled Where the wreck was saddest,
Sweet pensive herbs. that had been gay elsewhere,

With conscious mien of place rose tall and still,

And bent with duty Like some village children
Who found a dead king on a battie-field,
And with decorous care and reverent pity
Composed the lordly ruin. and sat down
Grave without tears. At length the giant lay,
And everywhere he was begirt with years.
And everywhere the torn and mouldering Past
Hung with the ivy. For Time, smit with honour
Of what he slew, cast his own mantle on him,
That none should mock the dead.

In 1871 Mr. Dobell published a spirited political lyric, entitled 'England's Day.'

The day has gone by when the public of this country could be justly charged with reglect of native genius. Any manifestation of original intellectual power bursting from obscurity is instantly recognised, fostered, and applauded. The ever-open periodical press is ready to welcome and proclaim the new comer, and there is no lack of critics animated by a tolerant and generous spirit. In 1853 appeared Poems' by ALEXANDER SMITH (1830-1867), the principal piece in the collection being a series of thirteen dramatic scenes, entitled A Life Drama.' The manuscript of this volume had been submitted to the Rev. George Gilfillan, and portions of it had been laid before the public by that enthusiastic critic, accompanied with a strong recommendation of the young author as a genuine poet of a high order. Mr. Smith (born in Kilmarnock) had been employed as a designer of patterns in one of the Glasgow factories, but the publication of his poems marked him out for higher things, and he was elected to the office of Secretary to the Edinburgh University. Thus placed in a situation favourable for the cultivation of his talents, Mr. Smith continued his literary pursuits. He joined with Mr. Dobell, as already stated, in writing a series of War Sonnets; he con tributed prose essays to some of the periodicals; and in 1857 he came

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