"THE GREAT END OF POESY,-THAT IT SHOULD BE A FRIEND-(KEATS)

Charmed magic casements,* opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades :

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music? Do I wake or sleep?

[From the "Miscellaneous Poems."]

"AH, WOULD 'TWERE SO WITH MANY A GENTLE GIRL AND BOY! BUT WERE THERE EVER ANY WRITHED NOT AT PASSED JOY?

TO KNOW THE CHANGE AND FEEL IT, WHEN THERE IS NONE TO HEAL IT, WAS NEVER SAID IN RHYME."-JOHN KEATS.

B

LAST WORDS,

RIGHT Star! would I were steadfast as
thou art-

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablutions round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors :

"This beats Claude's 'Enchanted Castle,' and the story of King Beder in the Arabian Nights.' You do not know what the house is, or where, nor who the bird. Perhaps a king himself. But you see the window open on the perilous sea, and hear the voice from out the trees in which it is nested, sending its warble over the foam. The whole is at once vague and particular, full of mysterious life. You see nobody, though something is heard; and you know not what of beauty or wickedness is to come over that sea."-Leigh Hunt.

TO SOOTHE THE CARES AND LIFT THE THOUGHTS OF MAN."-KEATS.

"OH, TIMELY HAPPY, TIMELY WISE, HEARTS THAT WITH RISING MORN ARISE!-(JOHN KEBLE)

THE UNDYING LAMP OF HEAVENLY POESY. -JOHN KEBLE.

REV. JOHN keble.

No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

[From "Letters and Remains of John Keats." In this exquisite sonnet the genius of Keats found its last expression upon earth. Truly, the poet (as F. T. Palgrave says) deserved the title "marvellous boy"* in a much higher sense than Chatterton. "If the fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England appears to have lost in him one whose gifts in poetry have rarely been surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their lives been closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left poems of less excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty school and the London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of 'high collateral glory.""]

Reb. John Keble.

[JOHN KEBLE, the poet of "The Christian Year," was born at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, in 1792. His genius commanded recognition at a very early age. He was only fifteen when he gained high university distinction at Oxford, where, we may remark, he was eminently fortunate in his friendships; his intellect being stimulated and his heart awakened by the converse and society of the late Justice Coleridge, Dr. Arnold, Coplestone, Whately, Pusey, and Newman-all of whom have since made their mark in our English history and literature. In 1810 he obtained double firstclass honours, was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, and appointed to an examinership in the Degree Schools. In 1815 he was ordained deacon; in 1816, priest; when he became his father's curate, and for about twenty years discharged the duties of his post at Fairford with simple earnestness and unaffected piety. "The Christian Year"-" the great work of his life, which will keep his name fresh in men's memory when all else that he has done shall be forgotten"-was published in 1827. In 1833 its author, already famous, was appointed professor of poetry at Oxford. In 1835, on the death of his father, he quitted Fairford; married Miss Charlotte Clarke; and accepted the vicarage of Hursley, in Hamp

*"The marvellous boy, who perished in his pride."

WORDSWORTH.

"LIFE, A WINTER'S MORN TO A BRIGHT ENDLESS YEAR."-KEBLE.

EYES THAT THE BEAM CELESTIAL VIEW, WHICH EVERMORE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW!"-KEBLE.

66 WHY SHOULD We faint and fear to live alone,-(keble)

shire. Here he spent the remainder of his blameless life, ministering daily
until interrupted by the failing health of Mrs. Keble and himself. He
gradually decayed, and after a few days' illness passed away to his rest on
the eve of Good Friday, 1866.

Besides "The Christian Year," Mr. Keble published "Lyra Innocentium;"
"Thoughts in Verse on the Ways of Providence towards Little Children;"
a "Life of Bishop Wilson;" and an edition of Hooker's Works.

The special characteristics of his poetry, says Professor Shairp, seem to be-First, a tone of religious feeling, fresh, deep, and tender, beyond what was common even among religious men in the author's day, perhaps in any day; secondly, great intensity and tenderness of home affection; thirdly, a shy and delicate reserve, which loved quiet paths and shunned publicity; fourthly, a pure love of nature, and a spiritual eye to read nature's symbolism.]

"WHAT IF HEAVEN FOR ONCE ITS SEARCHING LIGHT LENT TO SOME PARTIAL EYE, DISCLOSING ALL

THE RUDE BAD THOUGHTS THAT IN OUR BOSOM'S NIGHT WANDER AT LARGE!"-JOHN KEBLE.

SINCE ALL ALONE (SO HEAVEN HAS WILLED) WE DIE?"-keble.

"EACH IN HIS HIDDEN SPHERE OF JOY OR WOE, OUR HERMIT SPIRITS DWELL AND RANGE APART, JOHN KEBLE)

66

242

NOT EEN THE TENDEREST HEART, AND NEXT OUR OWN,-(KEBLE)

REV. JOHN KEBLE.

"OUR EYES SEE ALL AROUND IN GLOOM OR GLOW, HUES OF THEIR OWN FRESH-BORROWED FROM THE HEART."-KEBLE.

KNOWS HALF THE REASONS WHY WE SMILE AND SIGH."-KEBLE.

"IF ONE HEART IN PERFECT SYMPATHY BEAT WITH ANOTHER, ANSWERING LOVE FOR LOVE,-(JOHN KEBLE)

[From "The Christian Year" (First Sunday after Epiphany), edit. 108th, J. Parker and Co, 1867.]

BELIEVES, BECAUSE IT LOVES, ARIGHT.”—KEBLE.

WEAK MORTALS, ALL ENTRANCED, ON EARTH WOULD LIE, NOR LISTEN FOR THOSE PURER STRAINS ABOVE."-KEBLE.