Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation ; to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire. Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

O that thou wert but with me! - but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget

The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret; There may be others which I less may show ;

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my altered eye.

BERTHA IN THE LANE. PUT the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done! The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary! I have sewn, Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.

Sister, help me to the bed,

And stand near me, dearest-sweet!
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No one standeth in the street!
By God's love I go to meet,

Love I thee with love complete.

Lean thy face down! drop it in

These two hands, that I may hold "Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. "T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my first youth!

At the sight of the great sky;
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory's golden flood,
Audibly did bud, — and bud!

Through the winding hedge-rows green,
How we wandered, I and you,
With the bowery tops shut in,

And the gates that showed the view;
How we talked there! thrushes soft
Sang our pauses out, or oft

Bleatings took them from the croft.

Till the pleasure, grown too strong,
Left me muter evermore;
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before;
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.

I sat down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain;
And I blessed you, full and free,
With a smile stooped tenderly
O'er the May-flowers on my knee.

But the sound grew into word

As the speakers drew more near — Sweet, forgive me that I heard What you wished me not to hear. Do not weep so, do not shake O, I heard thee, Bertha, make

Good true answers for my sake.

Yes, and he too ! let him stand

In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand

He had claimed with hasty claim !
That was wrong perhaps, but then
Such things be—and will, again!
Women cannot judge for men.

Had he seen thee, when he swore
He would love but me alone?
Thou wert absent, sent before
To our kin in Sidmouth town.
When he saw thee, who art best
Past compare, and loveliest,
He but judged thee as the rest.

Could we blame him with grave words,
Thou and I, dear, if we might?
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds
Flying straightway to the light;
Mine are older. Hush! - look out
Up the street! Is none without?
How the poplar swings about!

COME to me, O my Mother! come to me,
Thine own son slowly dying far away!
Through the moist ways of the wide ocean, blown
By great invisible winds, come stately ships
To this calm bay for quiet anchorage;
They come, they rest awhile, they go away,
But, O my Mother, never comest thou!

As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies
Hum o'er him! Lo, a feather from the crow
Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes
See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm
Creeps from his festering corse! My God! my

God!

O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content.
If Thou have need of him he shall not stay.
But as one calleth to a servant, saying
"At such a time be with me," so, O Lord,
Call him to Thee! O, bid him not in haste
Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay aside
The soiled tools of labor. Let him wash

His hands of blood. Let him array himself
Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and fume
Of corporal travail! Lord, if he must die,
Let him die here. O, take him where Thou gavest!
And even as once I held him in my womb

-ah me!

That cold soft revelation pure as light,
And the pine-spire is mystically fringed,
Laced with incrusted silver. Here-
The winter is decrepit, underborn,
A leper with no power but his disease.
Why am I from thee, Mother, far from thee?
Far from the frost enchantment, and the woods
Jewelled from bough to bough? O home, my
home!

O river in the valley of my home,
With mazy-winding motion intricate,
Twisting thy deathless music underneath
The polished ice-work, - must I nevermore
Behold thee with familiar eyes, and watch
Thy beauty changing with the changeful day,
Thy beauty constant to the constant change?

DAVID GRAY.

THE ABSENT SOLDIER SON. 46 FROM THE ROMAN."

LORD, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, O Lord,
Do with him as Thou wilt; but O my God,
Let him come back to die! Let not the fowls
O' the air defile the body of my child,
My own fair child, that when he was a babe,
I lift up in my arms and gave to Thee!
Let not his garment, Lord, be vilely parted,
Nor the fine linen which these hands have spun
Fall to the stranger's lot! Shall the wild bird,
That would have pilfered of the ox, this year
Disdain the pens and stalls? Shall her blind

young,

That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold Whereof each thread is to this beating heart

So, O Lord, let me hold him in my grave
Till the time come, and Thou, who settest when
The hinds shall calve, ordain a better birth;
And as I looked and saw my son, and wept
For joy, I look again and see my son,
And weep again for joy of him and Thee!

THE FAREWELL

SIDNEY DOBELL