True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,

As you, too, shall adore;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honour more.-Richard Lovelace.

CONSTANCY.

OUT upon it! I have loved
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fine weather.

Time shall moult away his wings,
Ere he shall discover

In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise

Is due at all to me;

Love with me had made no stays

Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,

And that very face,

There had been at least ere this,

A dozen in her place.

Sir John Suckling, 1608-1641.

RETROSPECTION.

THERE are moments in life that are never forgot,
Which brighten and brighten as time steals away;
They give a new charm to the happiest lot,

And they shine on the gloom of the loneliest day!
These moments are hallowed by smiles and by tears,-
The first look of love, and the last parting given,-

As the sun in the dawn of his glory appears,

And the cloud weeps and glows with the rainbow in heaven. There are hours, there are minutes, which memory brings, Like blossoms of Eden to twine round the heart; And as Time rushes by on the might of his wings, They may darken awhile, but they never depart : Oh, these hallowed remembrances cannot decay; But they come on the soul with a magical thrill, And in days that are darkest, they kindly will stay, And the heart in its last throb will beat with them still.

They come like the dawn in its loveliness now,
The same look of beauty that shot to my soul;
The snows of the mountains are bleached on her brow,
And her eyes in the blue of the firmament roll.
The roses are dimmed by the cheek's living bloom,
And her coral lips part like the opening of flowers;
She moves through the air in a cloud of perfume,
Like the wind from the blossoms of jessamine bowers.
From the eyes' melting azure there sparkles a flame,
That kindled my young blood to ecstacy's glow;
She speaks-and the tones of her voice are the same
As would once, like the wind-harp, in melody flow :
That touch, as her hand meets and mingles with mine,
Shoots along to my heart with electrical thrill;
'Twas a moment for earth too supremely divine,
And while life lasts its sweetness shall cling to me still.
We met, and we drank from the crystalline well
That flows from the fountain of science above;
On the beauties of thought we would silently dwell,
Till we looked, though we never were talking of love :
We parted-the tear glistened bright in her eye,

And her melting hand shook as I dropped it for ever; Oh, that moment will always be hovering byLife may frown, but its light shall abandon me never! Percival (American).

LABOUR.

O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is the sad sentence of an ancient date.
And certes there is for it reason great;

For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,-
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

Thomson's "Castle of Indolence."

THE AGE OF WISDOM.

Ho, pretty page, with dimpled chin,

That never has known the barber's shear,

All your wish is woman to win,

This is the way that boys begin,

Wait till you come to Forty Year.

Curly gold-locks cover foolish brains,
Billing and cooing is all your cheer ;
Sighing and singing of midnight strains,
Under Bonny Bell's window-panes,-
Wait till you come to Forty Year.
Forty times over let Michaelmas pass,
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear, —
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,

Once you have come to Forty Year!
Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,

All good fellows whose beards are grey;
Did not the fairest of the fair,
Common grow and wearisome, ere

Ever a month was passed away?

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper, and we not list,
Or look away, and never be missed,
Ere yet ever a month is gone.

Gillian is dead. God rest her bier!

How I loved her twenty years syne!

Marian is married, while I sit here,

Alive and merry at Forty Year,

Dipping my nose in Gascon wine !—Thackeray.

FROM COLERIDGE'S "KHUBLA KHAN.'
THE shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device:

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw ;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of mount Abora.
Could I revive within me,

Her sympathy and song,

To such deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

Her flashing eyes, her floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drank the milk of Paradise.

SPRING.

As biting Winter flies, lo! Spring with sunny skies,

And balmy airs; and barks long dry put out again from shore; Now the ox forsakes his byre, and the husbandman his fire,

And daisy-dappled meadows bloom where winter frosts lay hoar.

By Cytheria led, while the moon shines overhead,

The Nymphs and Graces hand in hand with alternating feet Shake the ground, while swinking Vulcan strikes the sparkles fierce

and red

From the forges of the Cyclops, with reiterated beat.

'Tis the time with myrtle green to bind our glistening locks,

Or with flowers, wherein the loosened earth herself hath newly dressed, And to sacrifice to Faunus in some glade amidst the rocks

A yearling lamb, or else a kid, if such delight him best.

Death comes alike to all-to the monarch's lordly hall,

Or the hovel of the beggar, and his summons none shall stay.
O Sestius, happy Sestius! use the moments as they pass;
Far-reaching hopes are not for us, the creatures of a day.

Thee soon shall night enshroud; and the manes' phantom crowd
And the starveling house unbeautiful of Pluto shut thee in ;
And thou shalt not banish care by the ruddy wine-cup there,
Nor woo the gentle Lycidas, whom all are mad to win.

Horace (Trans. Theo. Martin).

THE DIRGE.

WHAT is the existence of man's life,
But open war or slumbered strife;
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace

Till death's cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm-where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,

Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds and grows
And withers as the leaves disclose ;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;

Then shrinks into the fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandering as his fancies are ;
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial-which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight;
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude

Which doth short joys, long woes include:
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death.

Dr. Henry King.

THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA.
BANDUSIA'S fount, in clearness crystalline,
O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
To-morrow shall be thine

A kid, whose crescent brow

Is sprouting, all for love and victory,

In vain; his warm red blood so early stirred,

Thy gelid stream shall dye,

Child of the wanton herd.

Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,
Forbears to touch; sweet cool thy waters yield

To ox with ploughing tired,

And flocks that range afield.

Thou too one day shall win proud eminence
'Mid honoured founts, while I the ilex sing

Crowning the cavern, whence

Thy babbling wavelets spring.

Horace (Trans. by Prof. Conington).