Beautiful world! while godlike I deem thee,

No cold wit shall move me with bile to blaspheme thee!

I have lived in thy light, and when Fate ends my story,

May I leave on death's cloud the trail of life's glory! Wondrous old world! no ages shall shame thee! Ever bright with new light from the God who did frame thee!

TO THE MEMORY OF SYDNEY DOBELL. And thou, too, gone! one more bright soul away To swell the mighty sleepers 'neath the sod; One less to honor and to love, and say, Who lives with thee doth live half-way to God! My chaste-souled Sydney! thou wast carved too fine For coarse observance of the general eye; But who might look into thy soul's fair shrine Saw bright gods there, and felt their presence nigh. Oh! if we owe warm thanks to Heaven, 'tis when In the slow progress of the struggling years Our touch is blessed to feel the pulse of men Who walk in light and love above their peers White-robed, and forward point with guiding hand, Breathing a heaven around them where they stand!

Joseph Addison Alexander

AMERICAN.

A native of Philadelphia, Alexander (1809-1860) became a Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton; his specialty being in Oriental literature. He was accomplished in almost every department of letters, was master of seven languages, and near to being a proficient in many more. His articles in the Princeton Review remain an evidence of his varied powers and attainments. His elaborate work on the Prophecies of Isaiah (1846-'47) was republished in Glasgow.

THE POWER OF SHORT WORDS. Think not that strength lies in the big round word, Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak. To whom can this be true who once has heard The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, When want, or woe, or fear is in the throat,

So that each word gasped out is like a shriek Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange, wild note Sung by some fay or fiend? There is a strength Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine, Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length.

Let but this force of thought and speech be mine,

And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine;

Light, but not heat-a flash, but not a blaze!

Nor mere strength is it that the short word boasts: It serves of more than fight or storm to tell— The roar of waves that clash on rock-bound coasts, The crash of tall trees when the wild winds swell, The roar of guns, the groans of men that die

On blood-stained fields. It has a voice as well For them that far off on their sick-beds lie;

For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead;

For them that laugh, and dance, and clap the hand; To Joy's quick step, as well as Grief's slow tread, The sweet, plain words we learn at first keep time; And though the theme be sad, or gay, or grand, With each, with all, these may be made to chime, In thought, or speech, or song, in prose or rhyme.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Miss Barrett was born in London in 1809, married Robert Browning, the poet, in 1846, and died at Florence in 1861. Her father was a wealthy London merchant, and she had the advantage of a superior education. She began to write both in prose and verse at the age of ten, and at seventeen published a volume of poems. In 1833 appeared her translation of the "Prometheus Bound" of Eschylus. In 1838 she put forth "The Seraphim, and other Poems," which was followed by "The Romaunt of the Page," 1839. About this time the breaking of a blood-vessel kept her for some years a prisoner to her room. In 1844 she sent forth a collected edition of her poems in two volumes. In 1850 and 1853 new editions appeared. In 1851 she published "Casa Guidi Windows,' a poem which reviews the state of Italy. In 1856 “Aurora Leigh," the longest of her poems, appeared. It is rather a novel in blank verse than a poem, and is of very unequal merit. In 1860 "Poems before Congress" were published-suggested by the political events of the time. This was the last work from her pen. Her delicate constitution gave way, and, to the grief of a large circle of friends and admirers of her genius, she died. Her remains were interred in the Protestant cemetery at Florence. All her works show intellectual power of the highest order, and will compare favorably with the best productions of masculine genius. She was a Spiritualist in the modern sense of the word, having satisfied herself of the genuineness of certain phenomena, which were sufficient for her convictions as to spiritual realities. "Such is the influence of her manners," wrote Miss Mitford, "that those who know her best are apt to lose sight of her learning and her genius, and to think of her only as the most charming person that they have ever met."

SONNET: CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REA

SON.

I think we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope

Of yon gray blank of sky, we might be faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop

For a few days consumed in loss and taint?
Oh, pusillanimous Heart, be comforted,-
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints?-At least it may be said,
"Because the way is short, I thank thee, God!"

COWPER'S GRAVE.

It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying:

It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying:

Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence, languish!

Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish.

O poets! from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing!

O Christians! at your cross of hope, a hopeless hand was clinging!

O men! this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling,

Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling!

And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story,

How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory;

And how, when one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed,

He wore no less a loving face because so brokenhearted:

He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation;

And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration:

Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken,

Named softly, as the household name of one whom God hath taken.

With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him,

With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven hath won him

Who suffered once the madness-cloud to His own love to blind him,

But gently led the blind along where breath and bird could find him,

And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic senses

As hills have language for, and stars, harmonious influences!

The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number,

And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber.

Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home-caresses,

Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses;

The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing,

Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving.

And though in blindness he remained unconscious of that guiding,

And things provided came without the sweet sense of providing,

He testified this solemn truth, while frenzy desolated:

Nor man nor nature satisfy, whom only God created!

Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother while she blesses

And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses;

That turns his fevered eyes around,-"My mother! where's my mother?"—

As if such tender words and looks could come from any other!

The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending o'er him,

Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore him!

A WOMAN'S QUESTION.

SONNET: FUTURITY.

Ever made by the hand above

A woman's heart and a woman's life, And a woman's wonderful love?

Ours passionately call, because ere long
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich

The poor world with the sense of love, and witch

With pulses that beat double. What I do

And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, he hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

XIV.

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile ... her look... her way
Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"-
For these things in themselves, Belovéd, may
Be changed, or change for thee-and love so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
Since one might well forget to weep who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on through love's eternity.

XVIII.

I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully

I ring out to the full brown length, and say,
"Take it." My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee;
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more. It only may

Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside,
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,-
Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.

XXVI.

I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,

And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust,-their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below

Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come... to be,
Belovéd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendors... (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts ...)
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants—
Becanse God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

Lady Dufferin.

Helen Selina Sheridan, daughter of Thomas Sheridan, granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and sister of Mrs. Norton, married the Hon. Price Blackwood, only son of the fourth Lord Dufferin, and became Lady Dufferin on the death of her husband's father. Her son, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Earl of Dufferin (born 1826), is known as an accomplished statesman, the author of "Letters from High Latitudes," and other works. He was for a time Governor-general of Canada. Lady Dufferin (1807-1867) first published "The Lament of the Irish Emigrant" about the year 1838, when she was the "Hon. Mrs. Price Blackwood." It is one of the most tenderly beautiful idyls in the language. It was set to an appropriate melody by Wm. R. Dempster, a Scottish vocalist and composer well known in the United States.

LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT.

I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary,

Where we sat side by side, On a bright May mornin', long ago, When first you were my bride; The corn was springin' fresh and green, And the lark sang loud and high; And the red was on your lip, Mary, And the love-light in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary,
The day is bright as then,
The lark's loud song is in my ear,
And the corn is green again:
But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,

And your breath warm on my cheek; And I still keep listenin' for the words You never more will speak.

'Tis but a step down yonder lane,
And the little church stands near,-
The church where we were wed, Mary;
I see the spire from here.
But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
And my step might break your rest,-
For I've laid you, darling, down to sleep,
With your baby on your breast.

I'm very lonely, now, Mary,

For the poor make no new friends; But, oh! they love the better still

The few our Father sends! And you were all I had, Mary

My blessin' and my pride: There's nothing left to care for now, Since my poor Mary died.