Most lowly daughter of a kingly line, No eloquence inspired gushed from thy tongue; No warblings from an unseen lyre, Floated thy sunny vales among. Patient and humble, gentle and serene, Deep in thy heart each virtue found its rest; Thy life was hidden in a lowly cot, While God alone inspired thy holy breast. Yet in the dimness of prophetic lore, And to thy shrine, the child of genius comes, Basks in the sunshine of thy presence rare, And while his canvass glows with added light, His soul invigorates itself in prayer. Mother, sweet mother, previous to each call, No child of sorrow ever pleads in vain; Our Saviour God will not refuse the prayer Of her, where on his infant head hath lain. ECCE HOMO. Behold the man in passive woe, His streaming brow, His pinioned hands,-- The sceptred reed-base mockery all! From His pale lip no murmurs fall; No plaint, no tone save words of love, From that poor bruised and bleeding heart; "Father, forgive this dire offence, They know not yet their guilty part." In memory of that love divine, The Cross, the Thorn, the Sweat, the Spear, Grant us to dwell within thy love And live in endless hope and fear. ALFRED TENNYSON. ALFRED TENNYSON impresses us as a man of genius, high and lofty in his conceptions, notwithstanding the many crudities and verbosities, which his warmest friends will not attempt to deny. It might be thought almost excusable for one who owes his high position to court favor, a certain bias or leaning to the eccentricities or foibles of the great, but it is scarcely to be found in all his works. He has discovered that virtue in lowly places which stamps its possessor noble "A simple maiden in her flower Were worth a hundred coat of arms." Is an eloquent exposition of his sentiments. Again in the same poem: "Howe'er it be it seems to mc Kind hearts are more than coronets, He inveighs against pride of birth also, in "The Lord of Burleigh," where a simple village maiden is wooed and won by one whom she conceives to be of her own station, but who is "Lord of Burleigh, fair and free." Wearied with stateliness, and pining, for the simple lowliness of her former condition, she nevertheless "Shaped her heart with woman's meekness, To all duties of her rank, But a trouble weighed upon her, |