ALEXANDER
SMITH.

1830-1867.

A LOVER'S WEALTH.

LAST night my cheek was wetted with warm tears,

Each worth a world. They fell from eyes divine.

Last night a loving lip was pressed to mine,

And at its touch fled all the barren years;

And softly couched upon a bosom white,

Which came and went beneath me like a sea,
An emperor I lay in empire bright,

Lord of the beating heart; while tenderly

Love-words were glutting my love-greedy ears.
Kind Love, I thank thee for that happy night!
Richer this cheek with those warm tears of thine
Than the vast midnight with its gleaming spheres.
Leander toiling through the midnight brine,

Kingdomless Anthony, were scarce my peers.

ALEXANDER

SMITH.

WINTER NIGHTS.

SHEATHED is the river as it glideth by,

1830-1867. Frost-pearled are all the boughs in forests old,

The sheep are huddling close upon the wold,

And over them the stars tremble on high.

Pure joys these winter nights around me lie;

'Tis fine to loiter through the lighted street
At Christmas time, and guess from brow and pace

The doom and history of each one we meet,

What kind of heart beats in each dusky case;

Whiles startled by the beauty of a face

In a shop-light a moment. Or instead,

To dream of silent fields where calm and deep
The sunshine lieth like a golden sleep-

Recalling sweetest looks of Summers dead.

'Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair,

And the deep sea still foams its music old.

So, if we are at all divinely souled,

This beauty will unloose our bonds of care.

'Tis pleasant when blue skies are o'er us bending

Within old starry-gated Poesy,

To meet a soul set to no worldly tune,

Like thine, sweet Friend! Oh, dearer this to me

Than are the dewy trees, the sun, the moon,

Or noble music with a golden ending.

NOTES.

In these Notes the Editor has occasionally made use, with the permission of the Proprietors, of a paper written by him, entitled "The English Sonnet," and published in the Cornhill Magazine, May, 1872.