Full of a nature

Nothing can tame,
Changed every moment,
Ever the same;

Ceaseless aspiring,

Ceaseless content,

Darkness or sunshine
Thy element;

Glorious fountain!

Let my heart be
Fresh, changeful, constant,
Upward, like thee!

The Changeling.

HAD a little daughter,

And she was given to me

To lead me gently backward
To the Heavenly Father's knee.

That I, by the force of nature,
Might in some dim wise divine
The depth of His infinite patience
To this wayward soul of mine.

I know not how others saw her,

But to me she was wholly fair,

And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,

And as many changes took,
As the shadows of the sun-gilt ripples
On the yellow bed of a brook.

To what can I liken her smiling
Upon me, her kneeling lover,-

How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
And dimpled her wholly over,

Till her outstretched hands smiled also,

And I almost seemed to see

The very heart of her mother

Sending sun through her veins to me!

She had been with us scarce a twelve-month,
And it hardly seemed a day,

When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away;
Or perhaps those heavenly Zincili
But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage-door,
My little bird used her wings.

And smiles as she never smiled:
When I wake in the morning, I see it
Where she always used to lie,
And I feel as weak as a violet
Alone 'neath the awful sky;

As weak, yet as trustful, also;
For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful nature
Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
Rain falls, suns rise and set,

Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
A poor little violet!

This child is not mine, as the first was,

I cannot sing it to rest,

I cannot lift it up fatherly

And bless it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair!

ALFRED TENNYSON.

ALFRED TENNYSON was born at Somersby, in Lincolnshire, England, January 12, 1810; and, at the present writing, is living on the Isle of the Isle of Wight. His father, a minister, was described as a man remarkable for strength and stature, and for the energetic force of his character. Alfred is the oldest of a family of poets. The three boys who became poets were educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and were pupils of Dr. Whewell. In 1829, Alfred gained the Chancellor's medal for an English prize poem.

He and his brother Charles published anonymously a small volume, entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1830 and '33, Alfred Tennyson published his first volumes over his own name.

While these early poems were subject to severe criticism, yet many of them showed unmistakable signs of genius, and gave the world to understand most distinctly that a great poet was arising to command its attention.

Severe treatment from critics caused him to remain in close retirement and silent study for a period of about nine years. He was moved, probably, by a thought