THE folds of her wine-dark violet dress
Glow over the sofa fall on fall,

As she sits in the air of her loveliness
With a smile for each and all.

Half of her exquisite face in the shade

Which o'er it the screen in her soft hand flings; Thro' the gloom glows her hair in its odorous braid :

In the firelight are sparkling her rings.

her eyes

up in

Beams the sleepy, long, silk-soft lashes beneath; Thro' her crimson lips, stirred by her faint replies, Breaks one gleam of her pearl-white teeth.

MADAME LA MARQUISE.

73

As she leans,-where your eye by her beauty.

subdued

Droops from under warm fringes of broidery white

The slightest of feet-silken-slipper'd, protrude,
For one moment, then slip out of sight.

As I bend o'er her bosom, to tell her the news,
The faint scent of her hair, the approach of her

cheek,

The vague warmth of her breath, all my senses suffuse

With HERSELF and I tremble to speak.

She sits in the curtain'd, luxurious light

Of that room, with its porcelain, and pictures, and flowers,

When the dark day's half done, and the snow flutters white,

Past the windows in feathery showers.

All without is so cold,-'neath the low leaden sky! Down the bald, empty street, like a ghost, the gend'arme

Stalks surly: a distant carriage hums by:—
All within is so bright and so warm!

*

*

*

*

74

MADAME LA MARQUISE.

But she drives after noon :-then's the time to behold her,

With her fair face half hid, like a ripe peeping

rose,

'Neath that veil,—o'er the velvets and furs which enfold her,

Leaning back with a queenly repose,

As she glides up the sunlight! . . . . you'd say

she was made

To loll back in a carriage, all day, with a smile; And at dusk, on a sofa, to lean in the shade Of soft lamps and be woo'd for a while.

Could we find out the heart thro' that velvet and lace!

Can it beat without ruffling her sumptuous dress? She will show us her shoulder, her bosom, her face; But what her heart's like, we must guess.

With live women and men to be found in the world

(-Live with sorrow and sin,-live with pain and with passion,-)

Who could live with a doll, though its locks should be curl'd,

And its petticoats trimm'd in the fashion?

Will it cry if I hurt it? or scold if I kiss?

Is it made, with its beauty, of wax or of wood?
Is it worth while to guess at all this?

Owen Meredith.

LYRICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

SOUND, Sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow;
There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
No keel has ever ploughed that path before;
The halycons brood around the foamless isles;
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
The merry mariners are bold and free;
Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me?
Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest

Is a far Eden of the purple East;

And we between her wings will sit, while Night
And Day, and Storm and Calm, pursue their flight,
Our ministers, along the boundless Sea
Treading each other's heels, unheededly.

It is an isle under Ionian skies

Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise,