And shrink as from a blow. I hear wild oaths,
And curses spilt from lips that once were sweet,
And seal'd for heaven by a mother's kiss.
I mix with men whose hearts of human flesh
Beneath the petrifying touch of gold
Have grown as stony as the trodden ways.
I see no trace of God, till in the night,
While the vast city lies in dreams of gain,
He doth reveal Himself to me in heaven.
My heart swells to Him as the sea to the moon ;
Therefore it is I love the midnight stars."

And again, p. 190.

"I could have sworn the world did sing in air,
I was so happy once. The eagle drinks

The keen blue morning, and the morn was mine.
I bathed in sunset, and to me the night
Was a perpetual wonder and an awe.
Oft, as I lay on earth and gazed at her,
The gliding moon with influence divine
Would draw a most delicious tide of tears
And spill it o'er my eyes. Sadness was joy
Of but another sort."

But, more than in Keats, there is with him amidst all his sensuousness, and beneath the absolute intoxication with the beauty of that nature which yet he has only seen, as it were, by side glimpses, the instinct of a purpose, the sense of a life's duty. Let us close our review with the lines that close his own Life Drama, when Violet has restored her lover to calm happiness.

"I will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn,
But in the armour of a pure intent.

Great duties are before me and great songs,
And whether crowned or crownless, when I fall
It matters not, so as God's work is done.
I've learnt to prize the quiet lightning-deed
Not the applauding thunder at its heels
Which men call Fame. Our night is past;
We stand in precious sunrise, and beyond
A long day stretches to the very end.
Look out, my beautiful, upon the sky!
Even puts on her jewels. Look, she sets,
Venus upon her brow. I never gaze
Upon the evening but a tide of awe,
And love, and wonder, from the Infinite,
Swells up within me, as the running brine

From the smooth-glistening, wide-heaving sea,
Flows in the creeks and channels of a stream
Until it threats its banks. It is not joy,
"Tis sadness more divine.

VIOLET.

How quick they come,

World after world! See, the great moon above
Yon undistinguishable clump of trees,

Is slowly from the darkness gathering light!
You used to love the moon!

WALTER.

This mournful wind

Has surely been with winter, 'tis so cold.
The dews are falling, Violet! your cloak,
Draw it around you. Let the still night shine.

A star's a cold thing to a human heart,

And love is better than their radiance. Come!
Let us go in together."

May he live to answer to his own picture, and to reign over us as one of the very lords of Christian song. May he take higher and nobler flights, and learning more of Christian truth, of that purity of tone and spirit which becomes the poet as a teacher of the truth, take that high place among true bards which his natural gifts qualify him to fill.

THE PAWNBROKER'S WINDOW.

I CAN seldom see a pawnbroker's shop without stopping to study the window with its confusing, its bewildering variety of goods. "How," I ask myself, "how can all those things have come here? How came that silk gown to be so closely acquainted with that tea-tray? What brought those satin shoes into such intimacy with those plated nut-crackers? How have all these discordant elements, these unharmonious wares, these representatives of all kinds of tastes, necessities, habits, and modes of life, come to be stuffed and jumbled together in such strange unnatural friendships?" "Adversity makes strange bedfellows;" that window is full of biographies, of lives, of histories of men, aye, and of sad histories too. No shopwindow has so much to tell. What care I for the cheesemonger's, the grocer's, the upholsterer's, or, fair lady, for the silk mercer's, with its rich delicate wares, that only tell me there is so much finery for the rich and so many rich customers for the finery? That long row of cheeses merely discloses the number of strong digestions in the neighbourhood which are able to make trial of their strength. The upholsterer's, with endless chairs and endless sofas, opens out no page of life; there are no histories there. But look along the pawnbroker's crowded panes, with the flutes and backgammon board, the tea-caddy and telescope, the pocket handkerchiefs and lockets, the family Bible and the brooches, the coral rattle and the Gazeteer. Ah! that medley of things tells me as plainly as if it could speak, "Want brought us here, we have come from many homes, north, south, east, and west; we have seen hard times; I, and I, and I, could tell you a good deal before I was packed off." No doubt,-I believe you; that toastrack, that fiddle, that faded green shawl, could be very talkative, woefully communicative. These things were not parted with as easily and pleasantly as the farmer sent off his batch of cheese for the cheesemonger; they did not come easily here; there was many a tug at the very heart before some of them could be wrenched from their accustomed place.

Look, for instance, at the backgammon board. Once upon a time it had its place on the bright mahogany side-table in the parlour of a small baker in a back street. But alas! one day the bank broke in which the baker's hard-earned savings had just been placed, the very bank that everybody said was as a sort of Bank of England in itself; and then besides this, his boy Charlie, that lame boy that used to be the friend of the organist, and sang so sweetly in church, had a long illness which consumed the profits of whole batches of bread for the doctor's bill. And then the flour factor, thinking things were going on ill, became impatient for the payment of his account. It was sad work! The poor wife trotted forth to gather in small bills to make up the flour-factor's; but some would not pay till the end of the quarter, some paid and grumbled and hastily gave up the shop; and thus the business dwindled down in the struggle to stop the flour-factor's demands. It was hard work! Fresh flour was to be got; credit was low; the rent was due; all seemed against the baker.

What was to be done?

"Well," said the baker, "something must be done." "So it must," said the wife in a sad tone.

"There's no money," said the baker.

"None," said the wife.

"Well then, what's to be done?"

"Why," said his wife, fidgeting in her chair, we must turn something into flour;" she looked anxiously at her husband, and her husband anxiously at her.

"Yes," he answered, after a pause; and then he looked round the room, and his eye fell upon the urn, the state urn, that was only used on grand occasions like the lord mayor's coach. His wife's eye followed his.

"Must it go?" said his wife: "well, there's no help for it, James, is there?" He only rocked himself in his chair, and then again his eye went round the room and it fell on the backgammon board; so the backgammon board was doomed; and then the round glass over the chimney-piece with the peacock's feathers pushed in at the top.

"That's enough-that's enough," he exclaimed with a trembling voice.

"But then we needn't sell them;" said his wife eagerly,

as if some new thought had given her hope: "Can't we pawn the things; and then, James, perhaps a turn may come ?"

"To be sure," answered the baker, "that's a good thought; we needn't quite lose them after all, only for a time, you know-only for a time." And then he smiled a little; it was not a very successful or well-managed smile, but still it made his wife smile; and hers perhaps was not a much better one, reminding one rather of what is called a "watery sun."

At this time the lame boy came home from practising with the organist; as he had limped along the streets he had had great thoughts about becoming an organist some day, and of his father becoming rich, and taking the great baker's shop in the main street, near them, and then of his playing at church for nothing. The boy's dream was over after a few words from his mother; the poor lad tried hard to suppress his feelings as he saw his father and mother were both distressed; but you might have seen his face twitch convulsively as he thought of the old backgammon board with which once a year, when his grandmother came from the country with her large nosegay and her heavy basket of apples, he was wont to play at draughts directly the candles were lighted in the little dark parlour behind the shop.

The next evening when Charlie had hobbled off to the beloved organ again, the baker's wife packed up the doomed goods with a heavy heart; and the baker, skulking out of his house as if he were doing something wrong, hurried into the streets in search of a pawnbroker's shop, which soon presented itself with its golden balls dangling over his head, like the sour grapes in the fable. His heart beat as he looked in nervously at the window, and then at the door; and then unable to enter he walked on to the next shop, and appeared to be examining the cheap sugar for 4d. a pound and the cheap tea; then he sidled back to the pawnbroker's, but his heart misgave him after all, and on he went. However, after a struggle, he mustered up fresh courage and stoutly resolved to enter the next pawnbroker's at whatever cost, arguing with himself like the boy with his medicine, who feels that "it might all have been over by this time," and that "it will not be easier to take an hour