IV.

PICKING AND STEALING.

Now Jane was under that old mulberry-tree,

So watched and guarded near the summer-house; I caught her pilfering from the lower boughs, "Dear Heaven! what purple lips! they'll surely be To in-door folk no doubtful history."

Now this to 'scape she stood with knitted brows

In pretty strife betwixt the ifs and hows,
No spring was near, - and turning full on me,
She said, "Sweet cousin, thy advice I pray."

"It is," quoth I (one arm her waist enfolding,
And with the other hand her small wrists holding),

"It is, to kiss those tell-tale stains away."

But ah! as kisses oft will do, this made

The matter worse, and both of us betrayed.

GEORGE POWELL THOMAS.

I.

TO CONSTANCE, IN ABSENCE.

THOU art not here! And ere we meet again,
Long years may pass away, and even thou,
My fair young bride, - some shadows on thy brow,
The tokens some of time and some of pain,
May, ere that hour, have stolen in, to stain

The fairest face that e'er won lover's vow.
What matter? Be thy heart as it is now ;
Let that its freshness, beauty, truth retain,
And something of its own sweet power to adorn
Whate'er it loves, with such divinest light
As hovers o'er the mountain-top at morn,
Yet makes the poorest blossom heavenly bright:
Blest in those arms from which I now am torn,
I shall note nothing, then, of time or blight.

"Poems by George Powell Thomas, Captain Bengal Army, Author of Views of Simla.'"

་

II.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

BUT ah! the Future! That lies far away,
Hidden in mists above whose murky shade
Ev'n Hope, the flatterer, into air doth fade,
Till, of her radiant presence, scarce one ray
Lingers to light my solitary way.

Dread Future! Ever, as my heart had strayed
'Mid thy dim wastes, it hurries back, afraid,
And by the wayside sits alone, to pray, -
A timid traveller who has lost his track,

And cowers in solitude, of home to muse,

Of home, to which he fain would wander back, Following his heart there, but the Fates refuse; And there he sits in dark cold misery,

With Memory alone! - 't is so with me.

His claim to any share in thee or thine,

Till he has passed that dim and awful line, Which no man ever passed or e'er shall pass, Prizing thy gifts! Rare beings still amass

Treasures that after-ages count divine;

Yet ere they pass from earth, thou giv'st no sign
That they in memory shall outlive the mass.
How oft, in life, they pine for very bread,

While wordy critics smirch their lays with blots;
How oft above each unremembered head,

Year after year, the dock or hemlock rots;

And then thou nam'st their love, or woe, or mirth ; And towns that let them die boast that they gave them birth.

IV.

THE FIRST RAILWAY TRAIN IN INDIA.

A HOWL, as of a demon, startles night,
A rushing horror hurtles through the air,
And thrust from home by terrible affright,
As at an earthquake, forth the people fare,
Staring and trembling! - What unwonted sight
Astounds them, where they shudder unaware?
Is it some new avátar of his might

To whom they offer their barbaric prayer?
An incarnation new of Mahadeo,

Whose coming so delighted earth of yore?
Or is it tigers? wolves? in pity say, oh!

“Hands off! — don't bother ; - don't be such a bore!

There's naught to shout and tremble at, I tell 'ee! 'T is only our first railway train to Delhi."