What fathom-depth of soul-struck widowhood, What long, what longer hours, one life-long night, Ere ye again, who so in vain have wooed

Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite Your lips to that their unforgotten good, Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light! Alas! the bitter banks in willowwood,

With tear-spurge wan, with blood-wort burning red:

Alas! if ever such a pillow could

Steep deep the soul in sleep till she were dead,Better all life forget her than this thing,

That willowwood should hold her wandering!"

So sang he and as meeting rose and rose Together cling through the wind's wellaway, Nor change at once, yet near the end of day The leaves drop loosened where the heart-stain glows,

So when the song died did the kiss unclose;

And her face fell back drowned, and was as grey

As its grey eyes; and if it ever may

Meet mine again, I know not if Love knows.
Only I know that I leaned low, and drank
A long draught from the water where she sank,
Her breath, and all her tears, and all her soul:
And as I drank, I know I felt Love's face

Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace,
Till both our heads were in his aureole.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

WHEN I BEHOLD.

WHEN I behold thy bashful eyes
Full of a tender, sweet surprise
At my devotion,

The heart within me beats and throbs
With the tempestuous, sudden throbs
Of strong emotion.

But when thine eyelids veil their light,
The day for me is changed to night,
And, sad and slow,

My feverish pulses now are stilled,
While my poor anxious heart is filled
With pain and woe.

Then when the pale moon lights the sky, And swift-winged warblers homeward fly, Forth let us rove,

Where the sweet hawthorn scents the air, And flowers of spring-time, sweet and fair, Emblems of love.

My arm around thee, and thy heart
Beating near mine, no more to part,
Shall give me peace;

All nature shall more beauteous seem,
And life like some pure, lovely dream,
Never to cease.

A. Gaskell.

SERENADE FROM "WOMEN PLEASED." O FAIR Sweet face! O eyes celestial bright, Twin stars in Heaven, that now adorn the night; O fruitful lips where cherries ever grow,

And damask cheeks, where all sweet beauties blow;
O thou from head to foot divinely fair,

Cupid's most cunning net's made of that hair,
And as he weaves himself for curious eyes,
"O me! O me! I am caught myself," he cries:
Sweet rest about thee, sweet and golden sleep,
Soft peaceful thoughts your hourly watches keep,
Whilst I in wonder sing this sacrifice

To beauty sacred, and those angel-eyes.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

MUTE ELOQUENCE.

THOU sheet unstained, what shall my hand indite
Upon thy whiteness? Nay, my cheek doth flush,
And to my eyes the happy tear-drops rush,
In thinking all that I were fain to write!
And so I linger in mine own despite,

For lack of words to speak the true heart's fulness, The eager fingers, trembling, lose the might

To tell how noontide sunlight seems but dulness To eyes that look but for two others' light;

And how the early warmth of coming Spring Is chill and bleak to hearts that seek to cling Each to the other! So, then, take thy flight, White dove, and with the waving of thy wings Speak to my love, and say, "As tendril clings To that is nearest, so thy love by right

My love with firmest clasp should bind around,
Which hath upraised it from the sleepy ground!

C