So Love's gladness flees, And its sweets turn bitter; But the memories

Of its hours of sorrow,
Holier and fitter,

In the winter morrow,

Turn to gems and glitter.

JOHN PAYNE. Songs of Life and Death. (Henry S. King and Co., 1872.)

HALF of a ring of gold,
Tarnish'd and yellow now,
Broken in days of old,

Where is thy fellow now? Upon the heart of her? Feeling the sweet blood stir, Still (though the mind demur) Kept as a token?

Ah! doth her heart forget?
Or, with the pain and fret,
Is that, too, broken?

Thin threads of yellow hair,
Clipt from the brow of her,
Lying so faded there,—

Why whisper now of her? Strange lips are pressed unto The brow o'er which ye grew, Strange fingers flutter through

The loose long tresses. Doth she remember still, Trembling, and turning chill

From his caresses?

ROBERT BUCHANAN. Poetical Works, Vol. I.

REGRET.

WHEN I remember something which I had,
But which is gone, and I must do without,

I sometimes wonder how I can be glad,
Even in cowslip time when hedges sprout;
It makes me sigh to think on it, but yet
My days will not be better days, should I forget.

When I remember something promised me,
But which I never had, nor can have now,
Because the promiser we no more see

In countries that accord with mortal vow;
When I remember this, I mourn, but yet
My happier days are not the days when I forget.
JEAN INGELOW.
Poems; Second Series. (Longmans.)

SINCE I did leave the presence of my love, Many long weary days I have outworn; And many nights, that slowly seemed to move Their sad protract from evening until morn. For, whenas day the heaven doth adorn,

I wish that night the noyous day would end: And, whenas night hath us of light forlorn, I wish that day would shortly reascend. Thus I the time with expectation spend,

And fain my grief with changes to beguile, That further seems his term still to extend, And maketh ev'ry minute seem a mile. So sorrow still doth seem too long to last; But joyous hours do fly away too fast.

EDMUND SPENSER.

A PRECIOUS URN.

THE great effulgence of the early days

Of one first summer, whose bright joys, it seems, Have been to all my songs their golden themes; The rose-leaves gathered from the faded ways I wandered in when they were all a-blaze With living flowers and flame of the sunbeams; And, more than all, that ending of my dreams Divinely, in a dream-like thing,-the face Of one beloved lady once possest

In one long kiss that made my whole life burn: What of all these remains to me?—At best, A heap of fragrant ashes now, that turn My heavy heart into a funeral urn Which I have buried deep within my breast.

ARTHUR W. E. O'SHAUGHNESSY. An Epic of Women. (Chatto and Windus)

LOVE'S EPITAPH.

BRING wreaths and crown the golden hours!
Pile up the scented snows of spring!
If Love be dead of sorrow's sting,
Shall we make dark this day of ours,
This day of scents and silver showers
And lilts of linnets on the wing?
Sing out, and let the shadow ring
And all the grave run o'er with flowers!
If Love, you say, indeed be dead,
We will not spare to turn the leaf:
Spring is as sweet as aye, and red
And sweet as ever is the rose ;
He was so fickle, Love! who knows?
He might arise and mock our grief!

JOHN PAYNE.
Intaglios. (Pickering, 1871.)

SEVERED.

ACROSS the shadows that lie between,
Oh, love, my spirit leans forth to thee;
In all the glow of love's sunlit sheen

Must there be no whisper of light for me?
On the sullen gloom of the tempest tossed

There breaks no cadence of hope fulfilled; Shall the night ne'er find what the morn hath lost? The sea's low murmur no more be stilled?

For the hollow waters are cold and dread,

Though the ripples smile as they pass the shore, Yet my soul unconquered their depths would tread If thus it might hasten to thine once more. So widely parted! Oh, love, I stand

While darkness cradles the restless deep,
And crave one touch of thy clasping hand,
One whispered word ere I fall asleep.

I watch the ships on their outward course
Just meet one moment, then sail apart;
While the mocking tides, with resistless force,
The spaces widen from heart to heart;

So far asunder our paths diverge,

Perchance no meeting for us may be, Till the yearning eddies of life shall merge In the summer calm of a crystal sea! MARY ROWLES.

SUNDERED.

O WHY are we sunder'd so soon in our summer, Ere bees find their blossoms all dried from the storm, While the lark sings her sweetest of songs o'er the uplands,

Ere clotes are in bloom, or the streams are full warm?

O why are we sunder'd so soon in our summer,
Ere mown grass is sweet, by the path of your feet?

Full fair among fairest of things I have seen you;
And here on the rock by the old castle wall,
While the light shot from ivy, and clear waves
below you,

Ere leaves floated down them, all sear'd by the
Fall,

O why are we sunder'd so soon in our summer, While summer is bright, but not come to a height?

Or up by the door-porch, forth looking at sunset, And smiling with thoughts of your all-hopeful mind,

While the rosebuds beside you out-open'd in still

ness,

Their sweetness and hues with the woodbine entwined,

O why are we sunder'd so soon in our summer, While boughs are behung with their rosebuds so young?

Or else on the slopes, by the oaks newly leafing, With larks whistling o'er you, I oft saw you pass, While the ground-sweeping wind, flitting playfully

by you,

Enlivened your way with the quivering grass.
O why are we sunder'd so soon in our summer,
Our life-summer bright, but not come to its height?
WILLIAM BARNES.

LEAVE-TAKING.

MAKE haste to go lest I should bid thee stay, Yet leave thy lingering hand in mine, and turn Those dark pathetic eyes of thine away,

Lest when I see the passion in them burn, My heart may faint, and through the broken door Love enter to pass out again no more.

1 Yellow waterlilies.

Yet tremble not, sweet veinèd hand and soft, And press not mine with such a cold farewell, Lest I remember, now too late, how oft

My heart has moved thee with its ebb and swell, Lest I should take those fingers frail and white, And kiss them warm in mine own will's despite. Farewell! farewell! ah! had we only known

How hard it is to rend one life in twain,

We might have wandered through the world alone,
And never felt so sharp a thrill of pain ;
Go hence in silence, or thy last reply
Will haunt my weary memory till I die.

And yet, for one word spoken,
One whisper of regret,
The dream had not been broken
And love were with us yet.

RENNELL RODD.
Songs in the South. (D. Bogue.)

PARTING.

THE pale tiny stars in the sky

Look down from their pure summer height, The ocean glides on with a sigh,

And fades the dim shore from my sight;

I look, with hot tears, as I hold

The one prize of home I may save, A treasure more precious than gold, The last little flower that you gave.

I know, as I look o'er the sea,

The cruel heart-struggle has past,

For ever the parting must be,

I have gazed on my loved ones my last :

A LITTLE CLOUD.

A LITTLE cloud, a little cloud,

That scarce might tell of storms to be ; Blue happy skies, that laughing bow'd Across a quiet summer sea.

A little cloud, a tiny form:

Yet winds came up along the main, And all the waves were ridged with storm, And all the lands were dark with rain.

A little word, a little word,

And joy in two young hearts was dead! Alas, that it was ever heard!

Alas, that it was ever said!

A little word; the sun went down ;
Then fell the ruin and the rain ;
Love's happy fields were bare and brown,
And life was never bright again!

F. E. WEATHERLY.
Dresden China. (Diprose and Bateman.)

A FRAGMENT.
COME not to wake again

The old sad dream of pain,
To smile and weep:
Your melancholy eyes,
Your soft remembered sighs,

Oh, let them sleep.

J. A. SYMONDS.

Many Moods. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)

A "WOMAN with a past!" What happier omen
Could heart desire for mistress or for friend?
Phoenix of friends, and most divine of women,
Skilled in all fence to venture or defend.
And with love's science at your fingers' end,
No tears to vex, no ignorance to bore,
A fancy ripe, the zest which sorrows lend!-
I would to God we had not met before.
-I would to God! and yet to God I would
That we had never met. To see you thus
Is grief and wounds and poison to my blood.
Oh, this is sacrilege and foul abuse.
You were a thing for honour not vile use,
Not for the mad world's wicked sinks and stews.
Love Sonnets of Proteus. (K. Paul.)

I WOULD not have that love of ours revive
(If I could backward tread the years again),
Much as I prized it: life could scarce survive
A second access of the old sweet pain.

I would not, if I could; and in this strife

I cannot; for our man's heart has but room For one short life and Love itself is life,

And can have but one summer and one bloom. Is it so short, this love and life of ours?

Short in its sweetness, in its sadness long; And yet we find, among its fleeting hours,

Some that are perfect as a linnet's song. Dear, it was brief, and left the sweeter peace : The thought of true love lives, though loving cease.

JOHN PAYNE.

Songs of Life and Death. (Henry S. King and Co., 1872.)

GOOD-BYE.

KISS me, and say good-bye;

Good-bye, there is no word to say but this,
Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,
Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;
Kiss me, and say good-bye.

Farewell, be glad, forget:

There is no need to say "forget," I know, For youth is youth, and time will have it so. And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet, Farewell, you must forget.

You shall bring home your sheaves,

Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined
Of memories that go not out of mind;
Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves
When you bring home your sheaves.

In garnered loves of thine,

The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years, Somewhere let this lie, grey and salt with tears; It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine Of life, this love of mine.

This sheaf was spoiled in spring,

And over-long was green, and early sere, And never gathered gold in the late year From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting, But failed in frosts of spring.

Yet was it thine, my sweet,

This love, though weak as young corn withered, Whereof no man may gather and make bread; Thine, though it never knew the summer heat; Forget not quite, my sweet.

A. LANG. Ballads and Lyrics of Old France. (Longmans.)

ONCE those eyes, full sweet, full shy,

Told a certain thing to mine; What they told me I put by,

O, so careless of the sign.

Such an easy thing to take,

And I did not want it then ;
Fool! I wish my heart would break,
Scorn is hard on hearts of men.

JEAN INGELOW.
Poems; Second Series. (Longmans.)

You loved me too when first we met;
Your tender kisses told me so.
How changed you are from what you were
In life and love-one year ago!

ADAH MENKEN.
Infelicia. (J. C. Hotten.)

FOR all the while there grew, and grew A germ,— a bud, within my bosom : No flower, fair Eve!--for thanks to you, It never came to blossom.

OWEN MEREDITH.

The Wanderer. (Chapman and Hall.)

OUR love was like most other loves ;-
A little glow, a little shiver,
A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves,

And "Fly not yet "-upon the river;
Some jealousy of some one's heir,

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted,
A miniature, a lock of hair,

The usual vows,-and then we parted.
WINTHROP M. PRAED.
Poems. (Ward, Lock, and Co.)

THE PINCHBECK RING.

NAE, never fear for me, mother,
I am na going to dee,

For sic a cause I winna let

A tear-drop dim my e'e.

And yet I could hae lo'ed him weel,

Had he been gude and true; But as he's left me and forgot, Why, I'll forget him too.

I ga'ed him back the ribbon blue;
I ga'ed him back the ring;
'Twas only pinchbeck after a',
The little paltry thing.

And sure his love was just the same,
Deceitful, and untrue;

And so, as he's forgot me now,

I'll just forget him too.

Now take my warning, maidens fair,
And listen while I sing;

All is not gold that glitters bright,
Like little Katie's ring:

And when your lovers faithless prove,
I'll tell you what to do,-

Be sure they're only pinchbeck ones,
And just forget them too.

KENNETT LEA.
Poemata Melica. (Macintosh.)

TO A LOST LOVE.

COLD snowdrops which the shrinking new-born

year

Sends like the dove from out the storm-tost ark;

Sweet violets which may not tarry here

Beyond the earliest flutings of the lark ;

Bright celandines which dot the tufted brake
Before the speckled thrush her nest has made;
Fair frail anemones which star-like shake

And twinkle by each sunny bank and glade;
Pale primroses wherewith the virgin spring,
As with a garland, binds her comely head;
No eyes have I for you, nor voice to sing.
My love is dead!

For she was young and pure and white as you,
And fairer and more sweet, and ah ! as frail.

I dare not give to her the honour due,
Lest, for a strain so high, my voice should fail.

Like you, she knew the springtide's changeful

hours;

Like you, she blossomed ere the coming leaf; Like you, she knew not summer's teeming showers; Like you, as comely, and, alas! as brief.