He smiles on either with equal grace,—
On the simple ivy's unconscious life,
And the soul in the giant's lifted face,
Strong from the peril of the strife:

For both are his own,-the innocence

That climbs from the heart of earth to heaven, And the virtue that greatly rises thence Through trial sent and victory given.

Grow, ivy, up to his countenance,

But it cannot smile on my life as on thine; Look, Saint, with thy trustful, fearless glance, Where I dare not lift these eyes of mine.

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

TO VENICE

TO THE much-desired Venice
My thoughts fly with longing
When, in the clouded night,
My painful feelings

Are oppressed by bitter regret.

Thus the bird wounded

By a venomous serpent

Flies, flies, till wearied out,

And, deadened, drops

Beside its flowery nest.

O most magnificent Venice!
Whoever has been able to taste

The sweetness of love

Amid thy life of poesy

For eternity will not forget thee!

I love thee in thy desolation,

In thy vestment of mourning;

And in thy gondolas

Which lose themselves among the canals,

Like an uncompleted dream.

I love thee with fervent regret,
For thy beautiful Past,

And for the reminiscences

Of the sacred love,

And of the being I have lost.

ALEKSANDRI.

Tr. Henry Stanley.

THE GONDOLA

TILTS the gondola lightly over the wave like a cradle,

And the chest thereupon me of a coffin reminds. Just so we, 'twixt cradle and coffin, go tilting and

floating

On Time's larger canal carelessly on through our JOHANN WOlfgang von GOETHE.

life.

Tr. J. S. Dwight.

SUNRISE IN VENICE

NIGHT seems troubled and scarce asleep;
Her brows are gathered in broken rest;
Sullen old lion of grand St. Mark

Lordeth and lifteth his front from the dark,
And a star in the east starts up from the deep,
White as my lilies that grow in the west;

And the day leaps up with a star on his breast.
Hist! men are passing hurriedly.

I see the yellow wide wings of a bark
Sail silently over my morning-star.
I see men move in the moving dark,
Tall and silent as columns are,—

Great sinewy men that are good to see,
With hair pushed back and with open breasts;
Barefooted fishermen seeking their boats,
Brown as walnuts and hairy as goats,-

Brave old water-dogs, wed to the sea,
First to their labours and last to their rests.

Ships are moving. I hear a horn;
A silver trumpet it sounds to me,
Deep-voiced and musical, far a-sea
Answers back, and again it calls.

"T is the sentinel-boats that watch the town

All night, as mounting her watery walls,

And watching for pirate or smuggler. Down
Over the sea, and reaching away,

And against the east, a soft light falls,—
Silvery soft as the mist of morn,

And I catch a breath like the breath of day.

The east is blooming! Yea, a rose,
Vast as the heavens, soft as a kiss,
Sweet as the presence of woman is,
Rises and reaches and widens and grows
Right out of the sea, as a blooming tree;
Richer and richer, so higher and higher,
Deeper and deeper it takes its hue;
Brighter and brighter it reaches through
The space of heaven and the place of stars,
Till all is as rich as a rose can be,
And my rose-leaves fall into billows of fire.
Then beams reach upward as arms from a sea;
Then lances and arrows are aimed at me.
Then lances and spangles and spars and bars
Are broken and shivered and strewn on the sea;
And around and about me tower and spire
Start from the billows like tongues of fire.
JOAQUIN MILLER.

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S

O, GALUPPI, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;

But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.

What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,

Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis what you call...

arch'd by .

Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:

I was never out of England-it's as if I saw it all!

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?

Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day

When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?