"PROSPERITY, LIKE THE SWALLOW, COMES AND GOES: TO-DAY THERE IS THE RUINOUS CLAY

414

THIS LIFE IS BUT A MOMENT'S SPARROW-FLIGHT-(SMITH)

ALEXANDER SMITH.

AND STRAW; TO-MORROW SWEETEST TWITTERINGS FILL OUR EAVES."-ALEXANDER SMITH.

"THE SADDEST GRAVE THAT EVER TEARS KEPT GREEN MUST SINK AT LAST-(SMITH)

The truth that checks the blood, and makes the temples

gray:

The light of thy sunrise

Dwells deep in memory's eyes,

And I feel as bare as winter in the thick leaf-coming May.

O youth, youth, youth,

Time has neither rest nor ruth.
Spring enkindles wood and plain,
But it passes heart and brain.
Spring, above the mountain crag,
Waves the morning's fiery flag,
Draws the evening amethyst—
Time has staled the lips I kissed
In such passion undissembled
That its very rapture trembled.
Spring may walk o'er daisies spread,
With a skylark overhead;

Her garments scented with the May;
Round her footsteps lambs at play.
But she is alien, she is foreign:
Her delight I have no store in.
I regard her as a child
Singing in her spirit wild,

Dancing in the sheer excess

Of a thoughtless happiness.

HAS NEVER MADE THE FULL AND PERFECT MAN."-SMITH.

UNTO THE COMMON LEVEL OF THE WORLD, THEN O'ER IT RUNS A ROAD."-SMITH.

"STUFF YOUR SHOP-WINDOWS THICKLY WITH YOUR GOODS ;-(SMITH)

416

ALEXANDER SMITH.

Her smile is bright, but very shallow,
More I love September's yellow;
Morns of dew-strung gossamer,

Thoughtful days without a stir,
Rooky clangours, brazen leaves,
Stubbles dotted o'er with sheaves,
More than Spring's bright uncontrol
Suit the Autumn of the soul.

"WHEN LORD CHRIST COMES TO HIS OWN, THE TIMES OF WAR ARE O'ER:-(ALEXANDER SMITH)

UPON HIS RAIMENT THERE ARE STAINS OF BLOOD, BUT 'TIS HIS OWN, FOR HE CAN ONLY LOVE."-SMITH.

"FAMILIAR THINGS ENOUGH TO YOU AND ME,—(a. Smith)

Sing to the Spring-but through the Spring I look
And see, when fields are bare, the woodlands pale,

And hear a sad, unmated redbreast wail,
In beechen russets by a leaden brook.

For I am tortured by a boding eye

That, gazing on the morning's glorious grain,
Beholds late shreds of fiery sunset stain
The marble pallor of a western sky.

Sweet is thy song, O merle! and sweetly sung
Thy forefathers in our forefathers' ears;
And this-far more than all-thy song endears,
In that it knits the old world with the young.
Men live and die, the song remains; and wher
I list the passion of thy vernal breath,
Methinks thou singest best to Love and Death-
To happy lovers and to dying men.

[From "Last Leaves," by Alexander Smith. This bright lyric, full of spring-time glow and music, is characterized by a thoughtful critic in the Spectator as "clear, sweet, and beautiful, quite the finest thing Smith ever

wrote."]

"CHRIST MADE ALL, AND LAYS HIS EAR SO CLOSE UNTO THE WORLD-(ALEXANDER SMITH)

B

SONNE T.

EAUTY still walketh on the earth and air:
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold

As ere the Iliad's music was outrolled;

The roses of the spring are ever fair,

'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,

TAKE A STRANGE GLORY FROM THE POET'S MIND."—SMITH.

THAT, IN LONE DESERT, PERIL, OR THICK NIGHT, A WHISPERED PRAYER CAN REACH IT."-SMITH.

"THE NOBLE ARTIST FINDS ENOUGH REWARD, WHILE THE PURE NYMPH IS GROWING FROM THE STONE,

"THAT TERRIBLEST OF VIRTUES, TRUTHFULNESS."-ALEXANDER SMITH.

["Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair."]

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.

[From "Poems," edition 1856.]

IN THE SWEET SMILE WITH WHICH SHE BLESSES HIM FOR LOVELINESS AND IMMORTALITY."-A. SMITH.

Robert Southey.

[THE poetical character of this most able and laborious writer has not unfairly been summed up by Lord Jeffrey :-Southey, he says, is a poet undoubtedly, but not of the highest order. There is rather more of rhetoric than of inspiration about him; and we have oftener to admire his taste and industry in borrowing and adorning, than the boldness or felicity of his inventions. He has indisputably a great gift of amplifying and exalting, but uses it, we must say, rather unmercifully. He is never plain, concise, or unaffectedly simple; and is so much bent upon making the most of everything that he is perpetually overdoing.

"HONEY IN WHICH THE BEES HAVE LEFT THEIR STINGS.A. SMITH.