yet reigns. Let Poetry look forth with undimmed eye, and amid the grossest sin she will turn the light of her truth to reveal the hidden image of the Creator; and to those absorbed in material gain shall be shown a higher chasm in the transending" worth of Mind. She shall win the desolate from their griefs, put new life into the despairing, animate the children of toil with the consciousness of the wealth of the imagination, and shake from the soul of the sensual the seeds of ruin by the greatness of her power to express the good. "Poetry," said Coleridge, has been to me its own 'exceeding great reward.' It has soothed my afflictions, multiplied and refined my enjoyments, and given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that surrounds me."

Let then the Poet use the City as a wondrous sphere for the development of character; as exhibiting the extremes of what is possible in the methods of living; its temptations to show, luxury and extravagance, "the lust of the eye and the pride of life;" its festivals and pageants; its streets; its arena of Opinion and Public Spiritedness; its satanic agencies to corrupt childhood; the excelling beauty of holiness there; its demand for the holiest zeal of woman, in her pureness and goodness; its ever shifting and prophetic scenes and character. "No poetry here," says a Scotch

character in "Alton Lock, the Sailor and Poet," to Alton who talked of writing a poem about the Pacific Islands and what Christianity would do for them, and who could see nothing poetical in the city: "No poetry here! Is no the verra idea of the classic tragedy defined to be, man conquered by circumstance? Canna ye see it here? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man conquering circumstance? and I'll show ye that, in many a garret where no eye but the gude God's enter, to see the patience, and the furtitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the luve stronger than death, that shining in thae dark places o' the earth. Come wi' me, and see."

too

Alton went with Sandy Mackage, and beheld, and left to hear his instructor take up the same strain-"Poetic element? Yon lassie, rejoicing in her disfigurement and not her beauty, like the nuns of Peterborough in auld time-is there no poetry there? That fair lassie, dying on the bare boards, and seeing her Saviour in her dreams, -is there na poetry there, Callant? That auld body owre the fire, wi' her 'an officer's dochter,'—is there no poetry there? That ither, prostituting herself to buy food for her freen-is there na poetry there? -tragedy,

With hues as when some some mighty painter dips,
His pen in dyes of earthquake and eclipse.'

Ay, Shelley's gran'; always gran'; but Fact is grander God and Satan are grander. All around ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are God and Satan at death-grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost, or Paradise Regained; and will ye think it beneath ye to be the People's Poet?""

Something has been done in this great work of poetry and the people. Around many a neglected class has already been thrown a melancholy interest, that has drawn true sympathy towards them; and poetry wedded to song, is pouring into the common heart a power that shall yet show its refreshing and reconstructive force in the relations of society. And what can exhibit the defilement into which betrayed affection, or the love of pleasure, hath drawn woman, but that power which the poet exerts to bring around the guilty one the scenes of other days, and paint the forsaken beauty of innocence and purity, the ever fresh joys of the heart that lived in dreams and visions of virtuous love. The poetic eye surveying the things of the city street, where the busy tread and leisure step make distinct revelations; and humility and pride, haughtiness and courtesy, beauty and display walk side by side, can read some of the finest passages in the great volume of poetry; and when the eye is dull, and the world seems prosaic because of its burdens and its wrongs, the meditative mind shall resort to

the better thoughts of better hours, and read Memory as Mary Howitt tells a Great Poet she read his book:

"And when my soul is wearied,
When human life seems vain,
When all our best endeavors
Like wasted seed remain;

When pride, and rank, and splendor,
And the court that's paid to gold,
Oppress me, and my lips are mute,
And my heart is very cold;
Then, then I read thy volume-
Thy latest and thy best —

And the smothered flame of human love
Rekindles in my breast."

LIFE'S CHANGES.

BY MISS A. A. MORTON.

"LONG years have passed since last I gazed Upon this loved retreat,

Yet little thought I, aught of change
Would now my vision greet.
The violets in the hedges bloom;
The briar-rose blushes near;
The evening wind as softly breathes
As when I last was here;

Like some wild, love-forsaken maid,
Who wears her bridal dress,
While gems her faithless lover gave
Gleam in each tangled tress,
Wrapt in its snow-white robe of foam,
Its tresses gemm'd with spray,

The Cascade still with raving mocks
The quiet declining day.

But where our vine-wreath'd cottage stood

A shapeless ruin lies,

And through the roof-tree's blighted boughs

The low-toned zephyr sighs.

Filled with a lonely grief, I'll sit

Beside the hearth-stone cold,

While evening shades around my form
A mourning mantle fold.