This is a heart the queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic,
Ere the true bosom she bent on,
Meet for love's regal dalmatic.
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic

Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went

on

Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!

ONE WAY OF LOVE.

ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves;
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves,
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?

The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string-fold music's wing.
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

My whole life long I learned to love;
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion.-Heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may-I still can say,

Those who win heaven, blest are they.

TIME'S REVENGES.

I'VE a Friend, over the sea;

I like him, but he loves me;

It all grew out of the books I write ;
They find such favor in his sight
That he slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don't admire my books:
He does himself though-and if some vein
Were to snap to-night in his heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,
Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor place,
And make me broth, and wash my face,
And light my fire, and all the while
Bear with his old good-humored smile
That I told him "Better have kept away
Than come and kill me, night and day,
With worse than fever's throbs and shoots,
At the creaking of his clumsy boots."
I am as sure that this he would do,
As that St. Paul's is striking two:
And I think I had rather-woe is me!
-Yes rather see him than not see,
If lifting a hand would seat him there
Before me in the empty chair
To-night when my head aches indeed,
And I can neither think, nor read,

And these blue fingers will not hold
The pen; this garret's freezing cold!

And I've a Lady-There he wakes,
The laughing fiend and prince of snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in the way
Of my love for her, to be down-toru,
Upthrust and onward borne,
So I might prove myself that sea
Of passion which I needs must be!

Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint,
And my style infirm, and its figures faint,
All the critics say, and more blame yet,

And not one angry word you get!

But, please you, wonder I would put
My cheek beneath that Lady's foot
Rather than trample under mine
The laurels of the Florentine,

And you shall see how the Devil spends

A fire God gave for other ends!

I tell you, I stride up and down

This garret, crowned with love's best crown,
And feasted with love's perfect feast,

To think I kill for her, at least,
Body and soul and peace and fame,
Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,
-So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips and little chin, the stir
Of shadow round her mouth; and she
-I'll tell you-calmly would decree
That I should roast at a slow fire,
If that would compass her desire
And make her one whom they invite
To the famous ball to-morrow night.

There may be Heaven; there must be Hell; Meantime, there is our Earth here-well!

MEETING AT NIGHT.

THE gray sea, and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves, that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm, sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross, till a farm appears:
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts, beating each to each.

PARTING AT MORNING.

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim-
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

CHARLES MACKAY was born in Perth, Scotland, in 1812. He received his education in London and Brussels, and in 1834 joined the staff of the London "Morning Chronicle." In 1844 he became editor of the Glasgow "Argus," but in 1847 returned to London, where he established the "London Review" in 1860. He lectured in the United States in 1852, and from 1862 to 1865 was here as war correspondent of the London "" Times." He has published nearly a dozen small volumes of poems, the first of which

appeared in 1834. Some of his songs have been immensely popular, "The Inquiry" perhaps the most so of all. His other works are "Longbeard," a romance, published in 1840; "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions," in 1841; "The Scenery and Poetry of the English Lakes," in 1846; "Life and Liberty in America," in 1853; and "Lost Beauties and Perishing Graces of the English Language," in 1874. He received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Glasgow in 1846.

THE INQUIRY.

TELL me, ye winged winds,
That round my pathway roar,
Do ye not know some spot

Where mortals weep no more?
Some lone and pleasant dell,
Some valley in the west,
Where, free from toil and pain,

The weary soul may rest?

The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low,
And sighed for pity as it answered, "No."

Tell me, thou mighty deep,

Whose billows round me play, Know'st thou some favored spot, Some island far away,

Where weary man may find

The bliss for which he sighs,

Where sorrow never lives,

And friendship never dies?

The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow,

Stopped for a while, and sighed to answer, "No."

And thou, serenest moon,

That, with such lovely face,

Dost look upon the earth,

Asleep in night's embrace;

Tell me, in all thy round

Hast thou not seen some spot

Where miserable man

May find a happier lot?

Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe,

And a voice, sweet but sad, responded, "No."

Tell me, my secret soul,

Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith,

Is there no resting-place

From sorrow, sin, and death?

Is there no happy spot

Where mortals may be blessed,

For I am old in anguish,

And long to be at rest, With my little babe beside me, And the daisies on my breast.

LOUISE ON THE DOOR-STEP.

HALF-PAST three in the morning!

And no one in the street But me, on the sheltering door-step Resting my weary feet: Watching the rain-drops patter

And dance where the puddles run,
As bright in the flaring gaslight
As dewdrops in the sun.

There's a light upon the pavement-
It shines like a magic glass,
And there are faces in it

That look at me and pass.
Faces! ah! well remembered
In the happy Long Ago,
When my garb was white as lilies,
And my thoughts as pure as snow.

Faces! ah, yes! I see them

One, two, and three-and fourThat come in the gust of tempests, And go on the winds that bore. Changeful and evanescent,

They shine 'mid storm and rain, Till the terror of their beauty

Lies deep upon my brain.

One of them frowns; I know him,

With his thin, long, snow-white hair,Cursing his wretched daughter

That drove him to despair.
And the other, with wakening pity
In her large tear-streaming eyes,
Seems as she yearned toward me,
And whispered, "Paradise."

They pass, they melt in the ripples,
And I shut mine eyes, that burn,
To escape another vision

That follows where'er I turn

The face of a false deceiver

That lives and lies; ah, me!

Though I see it in the pavement,
Mocking my misery!

They are gone!-all three !-quite vanished!

Let nothing call them back!

For I've had enough of phantoms,

And my heart is on the rack!

God help me in my sorrow;

But there--in the wet, cold stone,
Smiling in heavenly beauty,
I see my lost, mine own!

There on the glimmering pavement, With eyes as blue as morn, Floats by the fair-haired darling

Too soon from my bosom torn. She clasps her tiny fingers

She calls me sweet and mild, And says that my God forgives me For the sake of my little child.

I will go to her grave to-morrow,
And pray that I may die;

And I hope that my God will take me
Ere the days of my youth go by.

THE DEATH-SONG OF THE POET.

I HAVE a people of mine own,

And great or small, whate'er they be, 'Tis Harp and Harper, touch and tone

There's music between them and me.

And let none say, when low in death The soul-inspiring minstrel lies, That I misused my hand or breath For favor in the people's eyes.

Whate'er my faults as mortal man, 'Let foes revive them if they must! And yet a grave is ample span

To hide their memory with my dust!

But give, oh! give me what I claim,—
The Harper's meed, the Minstrel's crown-

I never sang for sake of Fame,

Or clutched at baubles of renown.

I spoke my thought, I sang my song, Because I pitied, felt, and knew; I never glorified a wrong,

Or sang approval of th' untrue.

And if I touched the people's heart, Is that a crime in true men's eyes, Or desecration of an art

That speaks to human sympathies?

As man, let men my worth deny;

As Harper, by my harp I stand, And dare the Future to deny

The might that quivered from my hand.

A King of Bards, though scorned and poor
I feel the crown upon my head,
And Time shall but the more secure
My right to wear it.-I have said.

THE LOST DAY.

FAREWELL, oh day misspent ;
Thy fleeting hours were lent
In vain to my endeavor.
In shade and sun
Thy race is run
For ever! oh, for ever!
The leaf drops from the tree,
The sand falls in the glass,
And to the dread Eternity
The dying minutes pass.

It was not till thine end

I knew thou wert my friend; But now, thy worth recalling, My grief is strong

I did thee wrong,

And scorned thy treasures falling.

But sorrow comes too late;

Another day is born;

Pass, minutes, pass; may better fate Attend to-morrow morn.

O birth! O death of Time!

O mystery sublime!

Ever the rippling ocean
Brings forth the wave

To smile or rave,

And die of its own motion. A little wave to strike

The sad, responsive shore, And be succeeded by its like Ever and evermore.

O change from same to same!
O quenched, yet burning flame!
O new birth, born of dying!
O transient ray!
O speck of day!
Approaching and yet flying;-
Pass to Eternity.

Thou day, that came in vain!
A new wave surges on the sea-
The world grows young again.

Come in, To-day, come in!
I have confessed my sin

To thee, young promise-bearer!
New Lord of Earth!

I hail thy birth

The crown awaits the wearer. Child of the ages past!

Sire of a mightier line!

On the same deeps our lot is cast! The world is thine-and mine!

PIETY.

O PIETY! O heavenly Piety! She is not rigid as fanatics deem,

But warm as Love, and beautiful as Hope.

Prop of the weak, the crown of humbleness, The clew of doubt, the eyesight of the blind, The heavenly robe and garniture of clay.

He that is crowned with that supernal crown,
Is lord and sovereign of himself and Fate,
And angels are his friends and ministers.

Clad in that raiment, ever white and pure,
The wayside mire is harmless to defile,
And rudest storms sweep impotently by.

The pilgrim wandering amid crags and pits, Supported by that staff shall never fall: He smiles at peril, and defies the storm.

Shown by that clew, the doubtful path is clear,

The intricate snares and mazes of the world
Are all unlabyrinthed and bright as day.

Sweet Picty! divinest Piety!

She has a soul capacious as the spheres, A heart as large as all humanity.

VOL. III.-30

Who to his dwelling takes that visitant, Has a perpetual solace in all pain,

A friend and comforter in every grief.

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