AIR are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer;

Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer;

Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter;

And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning out-mastered the metre.

Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing;

Never a river that flows, but a majesty sceptres the flowing;

Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold him;

Nor never a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him.

Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and hidden;

Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is bidden;

Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling;

Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the revealing.

Great are the symbols of being, but that which is sym

boled is greater;

Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator;

Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving;

Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving.

Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing;

The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing;

And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine,

Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine.

RICHARD REALF.

N

OW are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled
front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an anorous looking-glass:

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity;
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determinéd to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

BABY sat on his mother's knee,

On the golden morn of a summer's day, Clapping his tiny hands in glee,

As he watched the shifting sunbeams play.

A sunbeam glanced through the open door,
With its shimmering web of atoms fine,
And crept along on the sanded floor

In a glittering, glimmering, golden line.
The baby laughed in his wild delight,
And clutched at the quivering golden band;
But the sunbeam fled from his eager sight.
And nought remained in the dimpled hand.
For a cloud had swept o'er the summer sky,
And gathered the beam to its bosom gray,
And wrapped iu a mantle of sombre dye
The glory and pride of the summer's day.
Thus cheated sore in his eager quest,
With a puzzled look that was sad to see,

He laid his head on his mother's breast
And gazed in the dear face wistfully.

The cloud swept by, and the beam returned,
But the weary child was slumbering now,
And heeded it not, though it glowed and burned
Like a crown of flame on his baby brow.

And I thought, ah, babe, thou art not alone
In thy bootless quest for a fleeting toy,
For we all are babes, little wiser grown,
In our chase for some idle and transient joy.
We are grasping at sunbeams day by day,

And get but our toil for our weary pains;
For ever some cloudlet obscures the ray,
And naught in the sordid grasp remains.
But when the lures of our youth depart,
And our empty strivings are all forgot,
Then down in some nook of the peaceful heart
The sunbeam glows when we seek it not.
EGBERT PHELPS.

O farewell to the little good you bear me, Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory,

But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride

At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.