A measuring glance to guide my tiny shoe

Where lay firm stepping-stones, or call to mind “This thing I like my sister may not do,

For she is little and I must be kind."

Thus boyish Will the nobler mastery learned

Where inward vision over impulse reigns, Widening its life with separate life discerned,

A Like unlike, a Self that self-restrains.

His years with others must the sweeter be For those brief days he spent in loving me.

His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy

Sent little leaps and laughs through all my frame; My doll seemed lifeless and no girlish toy

Had any reason when my brother came.

Is but the rushing and expanding stream
Of thought, of feeling, fed by all the past.
Our finest hope is finest memory,
As they who love in age think youth is blest
Because it has a life to fill with love.
Full souls are double mirrors, making still
An endless vista of fair things before
Repeating things behind: so faith is strong
Only when we are strong, shrinks when we shrink.
It comes when music stirs us, and the chords
Moving on some grand climax shake our souls
With influx new that makes new energies.
It comes in swelling of the heart and tears
That rise at noble and at gentle deeds-
At labors of the master-artist's hand
Which, trembling, touches to a finer end,
Trembling, before an image seen within.
It comes in moments of heroic love,
Unjealous joy in joy not made for us-
In conscious triumph of the good within
Making us worship goodness that rebukes.
Even our failures are a prophecy,
Even our yearnings and our bitter tears
After that fair and true we cannot grasp;
As patriots who seem to die in vain
Make liberty more sacred by their pangs.

- A Minor Prophet.

I knelt with him at marbles, marked his fling

Cut the ringed stem and make the apple drop, Or watched him winding close the spiral string

That looped the orbits of the humming top.

Grasped by such fellowship my vagrant thought

Ceased with dream-fruit dream-wishes to fulfil; My aëry-picturing fantasy was taught

Subjection to the harder, truer skill

The faith that life on earth is being shaped
To glorious ends, that order, justice, love,
Mean man's completeness, mean effect as sure
As roundness in the dew-drop-that great faith

'Tis better that our griefs should not spread far.

-Ibid.
WOMAN.

A woman's rank
Lies in the fulness of her womanhood:
Therein alone she is royal.

FAME.

WORDS.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

-Ibid.

For what is fame But the benignant strength of One, transformed To joy of Many ?

-Ibid. SELF-CRITICISM.

POETRY.

The poor poet Worships without reward, nor hopes to find A heaven save in his worship.

-Ibid.

GREATNESS.

I can unleash my fancy if you wish
And hunt for phantoms: shoot an airy guess
And bring down airy likelihood, -some lie
Masked cunningly to look like royal truth
And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes free,
Or else some image of reality
That doubt will handle and reject as false.
Ask for conjecture,- I can thread the sky
Like any swallow, but, if you insist,
On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet
Right to Bedmár, across the Moorish bounds,
A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones
Is better stored.

- The Spanish Gypsy.

DESPAIR.

I think we had the chief of all love's joys Only in knowing that we loved each other.

-Ibid.

REPENTANCE.

Repentance is the weight
Of indigested meals eat yesterday.

- Ibid.

SPEECH.

Oh, I am sick at heart. The eye of day,
The insistent summer sun, seems pitiless,
Shining in all the barren crevices
Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark,
Where I may dream that hidden waters lie;
As pitiless as to some shipwrecked man,
Who, gazing from his narrow shoal of sand
On the wide unspecked round of blue and blue,
Sees that full light is errorless despair.
The insects' hum that slurs the silent dark
Startles and seems to cheat me, as the tread
Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher
Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause,
And hears them never pause, but pass and die.
Music sweeps by me as a messenger
Carrying a message that is not for me.
The very sameness of the hills and sky
Is obduracy, and the lingering hours
Wait round me dumbly, like superfluous slaves,
Of whom I want nought but the secret news
They are forbid to tell.

-Ibid.
CONSCIENCE.

Speech is but broken light upon the depth
Of the unspoken; even your loved words
Float in the larger meaning of your voice
As something dimmer.

-Ibid.

PAIN.

A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain

To feel much anger.

-Ibid. DUTY.

And rank for her meant duty, various,
Yet equal in its worth, done worthily.
Command was service; humblest service done
By willing and discerning souls was glory.

-Agatha.
BEAUTY.

Conscience is harder than our enemies,
Knows more, accuses with more nicety,
Nor needs to question Rumor if we fall
Below the perfect model of our thought,
I fear no outward arbiter.

-Ibid.
VENGEANCE.

Eyes that could see her on this summer-day
Might find it hard to turn another way.
She had a pensive beauty; yet not sad;
Rather, like minor cadences that glad
The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs. ·

-How Lisa Loved the King.

In high vengeance there is noble scorn.

-Ibid.

CHARLES DICKENS,

C С

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” he did not live to complete. He was suddenly overcome by a stupor, caused by effusion on the brain, on the evening of June the 8th, 1870, and died the following day. His death took place at “Gadshill Place," a house near the main road between Rochester and Gravesend. As a poet, little has been said of him, yet he wrote and published enough poems to fill a volume. The most important is “ The Hymn of the Wiltshire Laborers." That song against oppression has found a loyal response in thousands of hearts. The “Ivy Green" and "A Word in Season" are also well known. In his will he had desired “that he should be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious and strictly private manner, without any public announcement of the time, or place of his burial.” These conditions were observed but his executors did not consider them inconsistent with his receiving the honor of interment in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried on the 14th day of June, 1870.

I. R. W.

THE BRITISH LION.

A NEW SONG, BUT AN OLD STORY.

TUNE- The Great Sea-Snake.

HARLES DICKENS, novelist aud poet, was

born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, in Portsmouth at that time, but while Charles was very young, the family moved to London. His mother was a woman of much energy, as well as many accomplishments. She taught her son Latin, and tried to establish a boarding school, to add, if possible, to a small income. But with their united efforts, they could not keep out of distress, and when Dickens was nine years of age the family was living in abject poverty in Camden Town, then one of the poorest London suburbs. Charles was sent out, earning six shillings a week in a blacking warehouse, tying blue covers on pots of paste. For two years the child led a very hard, uncared-for life. Precocious beyond his years, with acute sensibilities and high aspirations, he had many books and formed an ambition to be "a learned and distinguished man.” He was self made, indebted largely to circumstances for an educ on. The streets were a painful study, but in after years they proved to be the best of schools for him, as his destined work was to describe the poorer homes and streets of London, and the many varieties of life, odd and sad, laughter-moving and pitiful, that swarmed therein. Many a clever boy like him, would have become a rogue and vagabond. He did not. Instead of sinking into the depths of wretchedness which he saw, he rose above it, and became one of England's greatest novelists. His first published piece of original writing appeared in the Old Monthly Magazine for January, 1834. From that time on his career was a remarkable one. He commenced the publication of the “Pickwick Papers” in 1836. Eleven aditional papers were published in 1837, and by November of that year the sale reached 40,000.

He continued to publish articles, and between April, 1838, and October, 1839 he produced “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby." The list of Charles Dickens's novels are too well known to need mention. Who can forget the “ Old Curiosity Shop?” Who has not wept over “Little Nell” or laughed over “Daniel Quilp?" Those characters alone would have made him fame.

In 1858 Dickens began a series of public readings of his own works, appearing in nearly every town of any size in the United Kingdom, and in 1867-68 renewing in this way his acquaintance with the American people. To tell the wealth of his imagination is beyond words, while no one has excelled him as a true painter of manners. His last novel,

OH, p'raps you may have heard, and if not, I'll

sing Of the British Lion free, That was constantly a-going for to make a spring

Upon his en-e-me;
But who, being rather groggy at the knees,

Broke down, always, before;
And generally gave a feeble wheeze

Instead of a loud roar.

Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum,

The British Lion bold! That was always a-going for to do great

things, And was always being “sold!"

He was carried about, in a carawan,

And was show'd in country parts,
And they said, “Walk up! Be in time! He can

Eat Corn-Law-Leagues like tarts!"
And his showmen, shouting there and then,

To puff him didn't fail;
And they said, as they peep'd into his den,

“Oh, don't he wag his tail!”

Now the principal keeper of this poor old beast,

WAN HUMBUG was his name,
Would once every day stir him up-at least-

And wasn't that a game!

For he hadn't a tooth, and he hadn't a claw,

In that “struggle” so "sublime;" And, however sharp they touch'd him on the raw,

He couldn't come up to time.

For, in Thy rest, so bright and fair,

All tears and sorrows sleep: And their young looks, so full of care,

Would make Thine Angels weep!

And this, you will observe, was the reason why

WAN HUMBUG, on weak grounds,
Was forced to make believe that he heard his cry

In all unlikely sounds.
So, there wasn't a bleat from an Essex Calf,

Or a Duke, or a Lordling slim;
But he said, with a wery triumphant laugh,

“I'm blest if that ain't him."

The GOD, who with His finger drew

The Judgment coming on,
Write, for these men, what must ensue,

Ere many vears be gone!
Oh GOD, whose bow is in the sky,

Let them not brave and dare,
Until they look ( too late ) on high,

And see an Arrow there! Oh GOD, remind them! In the bread

They break upon the knee, Those sacred words may yet be read,

“In memory of Me!” Oh GOD, remind them of His sweet

Compassion for the poor, And how He gave them Bread to eat,

And went from door to door!

At length, wery bald in his mane and tail,

This British Lion grow'd: He pined and declined, and he satisfied

The last debt which he owed.
And when they came to examine the skin

It was a wonder sore,
To find that the an-i-mal within

Was nothing but a BOAR!

SONG.

Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum,

The British Lion bold! That was always a-going for to do great

things, And was always being “sold!”

- Catnach.

Love is not a feeling to pass away,
Like the balmy breath of a summer day;
It is not-it cannot be—laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide.
It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me!
As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.
Love is not a passion of earthly mould,
As a thirst for honor, or fame, or gold:
For when all these wishes have died away,
The deep, strong love of a brighter day,
Though nourished in secret, consumes the more,
As the slow rust eats to the iron's core.

THE HYMN OF WILTSHIRE LABORERS.

OH GOD, who by Thy Prophet's hand

Didst smite the rocky brake, Whence water came, at Thy command,

Thy people's thirst to slake; Strike, now, upon this granite wall,

Stern, obdurate and high; And let some drops of pity fall

For us who starve and die!

THE IVY GREEN.

The GOD, who took a little child,

And set him in the midst, And promised him His mercy mild,

As, by Thy Son, Thou didst: Look down upon our children dear,

So gaunt, so cold, so spare, And let their images appear,

Where Lords and Gentry are!

On a dainty plant is the Ivy green,

That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,

To pleasure his dainty whim;
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.

Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Oh GOD, teach them to feel how we,

When our poor infants droop, Are weakened in our trust in Thee,

And how our spirits stoop;

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,

And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,

To his friend, the huge Oak Tree!