III.

H. W. LONGfellow.

FLOWERS ON THE BANK.

FLOWERS On the bank-we pass and call them gay:
The primroses throw pictures to the mind,
The buttercups lag dazzlingly behind,
And daisy-friends we spy but do not say

A word of joy; thoughts of them follow not,
And soon are they forgot.

What care we for wild flowers except their name?
Bright maidens at the sight in rapture start,
Which, as our smiles say, comes not from the
heart.

Flowers dance not, sing not, all their ways are tame;
They love not, neither love in us inspire;
Nor blush when we admire.

Yet stay, the fingers of that panting child

Have culled for us the choice ones,-many a gem,

Have set their lovely colours stem to stem; In her fond hands they are not tame or wild, Nestled in fringy fern so changed appears The little gift she bears!

She gives herself, and she can dance and sing, And she can love inspire and blush at praise; The flowers are part of her, have caught her ways; She gives herself who gives so sweet a thing.

And she is gone, with other thoughts than ours Gathering fresh love and flowers.

THOMAS GORDON HAKE. Legends of the Morrow. (Chatto and Windus.)

TO AMY-MY YOUNGEST.
(AFTER HERRICK.)

A LITTLE grave Bopeep know I,
As discursive as a fly :

Hither, thither lightly wandering,
Ever some sly mischief pondering!
Hints as of a past grimace
Glimmering on her roguish face!
Plots that counterplots defy
In each sparkle of her eye!

Jests, though tight her mouth she clips,
Playing 'round her mobile lips:
As, where dimples come and go,
Tripped dumb laughter on tiptoe!
'Round her elf-like, ruffled tresses,
Memories of fond caresses
Weave a nimbus o'er her head
As by Love engarlandèd.

Ask you, Who this wee trot may be ?—
Listen!-One we still call baby!

CHARLES KENT.

A RHYME OF ONE. You sleep upon your mother's breast, Your race begun, A welcome, long a wish'd-for Guest, Whose age is One.

Some day, too, you may have your joy,
And envy none;

Yes, you, yourself, may own a Boy,
Who isn't One.

He'll dance, and laugh, and crow, he'll do
As you have done.

(You crown a happy home, though you
Are only One)

But when he's grown shall you be here
To share his fun,

And talk of times, when he (the Dear!)
Was hardly One?

Dear Child, 'tis your poor lot to be
My little Son;

I'm glad, though I am old, you see,—
While you are One.

FREDERICK LOCKER.
London Lyrics. (K. Paul.)

ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CHILD.

A YEAR-an age shall fade away, (Ages of pleasure and of pain), And yet the face I see to-day

For ever will remain,

In my heart and in my brain!
Not all the scalding tears of care
Shall wash away that vision fair;
Not all the thousand thoughts that rise,
Not all the sights that dim mine eyes,
Shall e'er usurp the place
Of that little angel face!

For ever; and if joy or pain
Turn my troubled winter gaze
Back unto my hawthorn days,
There,-amongst the hoarded past,
I shall see it to the last;

The only thing, save poet's rhyme,
That shall not own the touch of Time !

BARRY CORNWALL

English Songs. (G. Bell.)

LITTLE ELFIE.

I HAVE an elfish maiden child;
She is not two years old;

Through windy locks her eyes gleam wild,
With glances shy and bold.

Like little imps, her tiny hands

Dart out and push and take; Chide her a trembling thing she stands, And like two leaves they shake.

But to her mind a minute gone Is like a year ago;

So when you lift your eyes anon, They're at it, to and fro.

Sometimes, though not oppressed with thought,
She has her sleepless fits;

Then to my room in blanket brought,
In round-backed chair she sits;

Where, if by chance in graver mood,
A hermit she appears,

Seated in cave of ancient wood,
Grown very still with years.

Then suddenly the pope she is,
A playful one, I know;

For up and down, now that, now this,
Her feet like plash-mill go.

Why like the pope? She's at it yet, Her knee-joints flail-like go: Unthinking man! it is to let

Her mother kiss each toe.

But if I turn away and write,

Then sudden look around,
I almost tremble; tall and white
She stands upon the ground.
In long night-gown, a tiny ghost,
She stands unmoving there;
Or if she moves, my wits were lost
To meet her on the stair!

O Elfie, make no haste to lose

Thy lack of conscious sense;
Thou hast the best gift I could choose,
A God-like confidence.

GEORGE MACDONALD.
Poems. (Strahan.)

Breakings into wisest speeches.
In a tongue that nothing teaches,
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing;
Slumbers-such sweet angel-seemings,
That we'd ever have such dreamings,
Till from sleep we see thee breaking,
And we'd always have thee waking;
Wealth for which we know no measure,
Pleasure high above all pleasure,
Gladness brimming over gladness,
Joy in care-delight in sadness,
Loveliness beyond completeness,
Sweetness distancing all sweetness,
Beauty all that beauty may be-
That's May Bennett, that's my baby.
W. C. BENNETT.

Baby May, &c. (K. Paul.)

BABY MAY.

CHEEKS as soft as July peaches,
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches
Poppies paleness-round large eyes
Ever great with new surprise,
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness,
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness,
Happy smiles and wailing cries,
Crows and laughs and tearful eyes,
Lights and shadows swifter born

Than on the wind-swept Autumn corn,
Ever some new tiny notion
Making every limb all motion-
Catchings up of legs and arms,
Throwings back and small alarms,
Clutching fingers-straightening jerks,
Twining feet whose each toe works,
Kickings up and straining risings,
Mother's ever new surprisings,
Hands all wants and looks all wonder
At all things the heavens under,
Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings
That have more of love than lovings,
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness, that we prize such sinning,
Breakings dire of plates and glasses,
Graspings small at all that passes,
Pullings off of all that's able

To be caught from tray or table;
Silences-small meditations,

Deep as thoughts of cares for nations,

TO ADELAIDE.

CHILD of my heart! My sweet, belov'd Firstborn!

Thou dove who tidings bring'st of calmer hours! Thou rainbow who dost shine when all the showers Are past, or passing! Rose which hath no thorn,―

No spot, no blemish,-pure, and unforlorn! Untouched, untainted! O, my Flower of flowers! More welcome than to bees are summer bowers, To stranded seamen life-assuring morn!

Welcome, a thousand welcomes! Care, who clings

'Round all, seems loosening now its serpent fold: New hope springs upward; and the bright World

seems

Cast back into a youth of endless springs !
Sweet mother, is it so ?-or, grow I old,
Bewildered in divine Elysian dreams?

BARRY CORNWALL.
English Songs. (G. Bell.)

A DUPLICATE.

MABEL, how old are you? But six! Why is it fancy plays me tricks? Upon my honour, I declare

I saw you, Mabel, sitting there

I LOVE a maid whose eyes are blue,
Who never walks but runs,
Whose voice is shrilly-clear and who

Is very fond of buns.

You'll not be shocked if you behold

Her seated on my knee,The maid I love is six years old, And I am thirty-three!

She thinks I'm very old, I know,

She treats me like her slave,
She laughs in mockery when I show
Her how she should behave.

She pulls my whiskers when I scold,
And dances round in glee-
But then-she's only six years old,
And I am thirty-three !

I fear she's rather fickle, too,

She's many other flames,

She makes them tell her tales untrue,

And play at noisy games.

In search of crumbs, like robin bold,
She hops from knee to knee-
But then, she's only six years old,

And I am thirty-three !

And when my back is bent with years,
And I no longer sing,

And she hath known the cares and tears
That life must surely bring,

I know her loving heart will hold
A tender thought of me,

In days when she was six years old,

And I was thirty-three.

HAMILTON Aïdé.

Songs Without Music. (D. Bogue.)

PARABLE SONNETS.

[Among the Bedouins, a father in enumerating his children never counts his daughters, for a daughter is considered a disgrace.]

I.

ILYAS the prophet, lingering 'neath the moon,
Heard from a tent a child's heart-withering wail,
Mixt with the sorrow of the nightingale,
And, entering, found, sunk in mysterious swoon,
A little maiden dreaming there alone :-
She babbled of her father sitting pale
'Neath wings of Death-'mid sights of sorrow
and bale-

And pleaded for his life in piteous tone.

"Poor child, plead on," the succouring prophet saith,

While she, with eager lips, like one who tries To kiss a dream, stretches her arms and cries To Heaven for help-" Plead on; such pure lovebreath,

Reaching the Throne, might stay the wings of Death

That, in the Desert, fan thy father's eyes."

II.

The drouth-slain camels lie on every hand; Seven sons await the morning vultures' claws; 'Mid empty water-skins and camel-maws The father sits, the last of all the band. He mutters, drowsing o'er the moonlit sand, "Sleep fans my brow: Sleep makes us a pashas; '1

Or, if the wing's are Death's, why Azraeel draws A childless father from an empty land." "Nay," saith a Voice, "the wind of Azraeel's wings A child's sweet breath hath stilled; so God decrees:"

A camel's bell comes tinkling on the breeze, Filling the Bedouin's brain with bubble of springs And scents of flowers and shadow of wavering

trees,

Where, from a tent, a little maiden sings.

THEODORE WATTS. [Reprinted from The Athenæum, by permission.]

1 Bedouin proverbial saying.