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FAIREST AND DEAREST.

WHо shall be fairest ?

Who shall be rarest?

Who shall be first in the songs that we sing?
She who is kindest

When fortune is blindest,

Bearing through winter the blooms of the spring.

Charm of our gladness,
Friend of our sadness,

Angel of life when its pleasures take wing!
She shall be fairest,

She shall be rarest,

She shall be first in the songs that we sing

Who shall be nearest,

Noblest and dearest,

Named but with honour and pride evermore ?
He, the undaunted,

Whose banner is planted

On glory's high ramparts and battlements hoar.

Fearless of danger,

To falsehood a stranger,

Looking not back while there's duty before

He shall be nearest,

He shall be dearest,

He shall be first in our hearts evermore.

CHARLES MACKAY.

THE RAINBOW.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So shall it be when I grow old,

Or let me die!

The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850

THE PHILOSOPHER AND HER FATHER.*
A SOUND came booming through the air.
"What is that sound?" quoth I.
My blue-eyed pet, with golden hair,
Made answer, presently,

"Papa, you know it very well

That sound-it was Saint Pancras Bell."

"My own Louise, put down the cat,

And come and stand by me;
I'm sad to hear you talk like that,
Where's your philosophy?

That sound-attend to what I tell-
That sound was not Saint Pancras Bell.
"Sound is the name the sage selects
For the concluding term
Of a long series of effects,

Of which that blow's the germ.

The following brief analysis
Shows the interpolations, Miss.

“The blow which, when the clapper slips,
Falls on your friend, the bell,
Changes its circle to ellipse

(A word you'd better spell).
And then comes elasticity,
Restoring what it used to be.
"Nay, making it a little more,
The circle shifts about;
As much as it shrunk in before,
The Bell, you see, swells out;
And so a new ellipse is made.
(You're not attending, I'm afraid).
"This change of form disturbs the air,
Which in its turn behaves

In like elastic fashion there,

Creating waves on waves;

These press each other onward, dear,
Until the outmost finds your ear.'

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"And then, papa, I hear the sound,-
Exactly what I said;

You're only talking round and round,
Just to confuse my head.

* Inserted by permission of the Author.

THE PHILOSOPHER AND DAUGHTER.

All that you say about the bell

My uncle George would call a 'sell.''

"Not so, my child, my child, not so,
Sweet image of your sire!

A long way farther we must go
Before it's time to tire.

This wond'rous wandering wave, or tide,
Has only reached your ear's outside.

"Within that ear the surgeons find
A tympanum, or drum,
Which has a little bone behind,-
Malleus, it's called by some;

But those not proud of Latin Grammar,
Humbly translate it as the hammer.

"The wave's vibrations this transmits
On to the incus bone,
(Incus means anvil, which it hits,)
And this transfers the tone

To the small os orbiculare,

The tiniest bone that people carry.

"The stapes next-the name recalls A stirrup's form, my daughterJoins three half-circular canals,

Each filled with limpid water; Their curious lining, you'll observe, Made of the auditory nerve.

"This vibrates next-and then we find
The mystic work is crowned;

For then my daughter's gentle Mind
First recognises sound.

See what a host of causes swell

To make up what you call 'the Bell.""

Awhile she paused-my bright Louise-
And pondered on the case;

Then, settling that he meant to tease,
She slapped her father's face.
"You bad old man, to sit and tell
Such gibberygosh about a Bell!"

SHIRLEY BROOKS.

113

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

THE stately homes of England,

How beautiful they stand! Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,

What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours!

Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime

Floats through their woods at morn;

All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage Homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,

They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet fanes.

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves,
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free, fair homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,

Where first the child's glad spirit loves

Its country and its God!

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MRS, HEMANS, 1793-1835.

THE MERRY HEART.

I WOULD not from the wise require
The number of their learned lore;
Nor would I from the rich desire

A single counter of their store.
For I have ease, and I have health,
And I have spirits, light as air;

And more than wisdom, more than wealth,-
A merry heart, that laughs at care.
Like other mortals of my kind,

I've struggled for dame Fortune's favour,
And sometimes have been half inclined
To rate her for her ill-behaviour.
But life was short-I thought it folly
To lose its moments in despair;
So slipped aside from melancholy,

With merry heart, that laughed at care.
And once, 'tis true, two 'witching eyes
Surprised me in a luckless season,
Turned all my mirth to lonely sighs,
And quite subdued my better reason.
Yet 'twas but love could make me grieve
And love you know's a reason fair,
And much improved, as I believe,
The merry heart, that laughed at care.
So now, from idle wishes clear,

I make the good I may not find;
Adown the stream I gently steer,

And shift my sail with every wind.
And half by nature, half by reason,

Can still with pliant heart prepare,
The mind, attuned to every season,
The merry heart, that laughs at care.
Yet, wrap me in your sweetest dream,
Ye social feelings of the mind;
Give, sometimes give, your sunny gleam,
And let the rest good-humour find.
Yes, let me hail and welcome give
To every joy my lot may share,
And pleased and pleasing let me live,
With merry heart, that laughs at care.

CHARLES LAMB, 1775–1834.

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