IVY.

"LET me forget," the sufferer prays,
"Past failings, faults, and sorrows!
There is no use in Yesterdays

That do not bless To-morrows;

Who would not faint on life's dread waste,
And sicken at man's doings,

If the slow ivy made not haste
To cover the soul's ruins?"

ЕРІТАРН,

ON AN ACTIVE TRADESMAN.

THIS headless column on a stone

What may this mournful shaft betoken?

Pale orphans answer, with their moan, "The key-stone of an arch is gone!

A mother's heart is broken."

EPIGRAM.

COMPANIONSHIP in toil or sorrow

Makes every man a brother:
Till we have work'd or wept together
We do not know each other.

WRITTEN AFTER READING GOETHE'S

FAUST.

CLOTHE truth in light, and men shall deem thee

mad;

But give to thought a dream's profundities,

And learning's self, for worth they never had,
Shall praise thy pages, and pronounce thee wise:
Old readers still shall find thee new to them,
As o'er thy lines for hidden wealth they pore,
To prop the Ancient House of Fallacies:
At each old nothing wondering more and more;
Shouting, "Eureka," as they turn it o'er;
Shall each discoverer laud his special gem!
For deep and safe the buried meaning lies
That never lived, and therefore never dies.

ЕРІТАРН.

READER! Since God expects thee, too,
Be, like our brother, kind and true;
Then, will three words thy worth express,
Honesty, Love, and Usefulness.

WOMAN.

WHAT highest prize hath woman won

In science, or in art?

What mightiest work, by woman done,
Boasts city, field, or mart?

"She hath no Raphael!" Painting saith;

"No Newton!" Learning cries;

"Show us her Steam-ship! her Macbeth!

Her thought-won victories."

Wait, boastful Man! Though worthy are
Thy deeds, when thou art true,
Things worthier still, and holier far,
Our sister yet will do ;

For this the worth of woman shows,
On every peopled shore,

That still as man in wisdom grows,
He honours her the more.

Oh, not for wealth, or fame, or power,
Hath man's meek angel striven,
But, silent as the growing flower,
To make of earth a heav'n!
And in her garden of the sun
Heaven's brightest rose shall bloom;

For woman's best is unbegun!

Her advent yet to come!*

LENT AND LOST.

OF Mary, by heav'n lent,

Heav'n has bereft us ;

And from her home all comfort went,

When Mary left us.

* Educated woman, through her self-denying, self-aggrandising refusal to marry, without first securing a certain standard of comfort, is destined to save mankind, and in the language of St. Paul, "Lift us up!"

We fear no ills, no foes,

Though they surround us;

Pass on, thou cloud of many woes!

The worst has found us.

If lowest cannot fall,

Need we be wary?

We lost fear, joy, hope, danger, all,
When we lost Mary.

In vain, vex'd Sea of Change,

Thou thy rocks chafest!

Secure, thy dreaded verge we range:
Saddest is safest.

LAND.

He ties up hands

Who locks up lands:

The lands which can't be sold and bought

Bring men and states to worse than nought:
The lands which can be freely sold

Are worth a world of barren gold.*

* Land, in Britain, is withdrawn from competition by the law of primogeniture, and in France by that of equal division among all the children of a marriage, to the great danger of both countries.