Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. ECHO AND SILENCE IN eddying course when leaves began to fly, As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo, For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky; With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill! SIR SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES. INDIRECTION FAIR are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer ; Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter; And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning out-master'd the metre. Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing; Never a river that flows, but a majesty sceptres the flowing; Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold him ; Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him. Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and hidden; Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is bidden; Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling; Crowning the glory reveal'd is the glory that crowns the revealing. Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symbol'd is greater; Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator; Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving; Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of re ceiving. Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing; And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine, Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine. RICHARD REALF. "WE ARE THE MUSIC MAKERS” WE are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, And sitting by desolate streams ;- With wonderful deathless ditties We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY. GIVE ME BACK MY YOUTH AGAIN THEN give me back that time of pleasures, Then bright mist veil'd the world before me, As I the thousand blossoms broke I nothing had, and yet enough for youth -- (From the German of Goethe.) IDLE SINGER OF AN EMPTY DAY Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, But rather, when aweary of your mirth The idle singer of an empty day. The heavy trouble, the bewildering care That weighs us down who live and earn our bread, Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show And through another saw the summer glow, Where toss'd about all hearts of men must be ; WILLIAM MORRIS (The Earthly Paradise). IN OUR BOAT STARS trembling o'er us and sunset before us, there's peace on the deep. Come not, pale sorrow, flee till to-morrow; Speak not, ah, breathe not- there's peace on the deep. As the waves cover the depths we glide over, peace on the deep. Heaven shine above us, bless all that love us; there's peace on the deep. DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK. CONVALESCENCE THANK Heaven! the crisis, The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last, And the fever called "Living" Is conquered at last. Sadly, I know, I am shorn of my strength, I am better at length. And I rest so composedly Might fancy me dead,— Of myrtles and roses : For now, while so quietly A holier odor About it, of pansies, A rosemary odor, Commingled with pansies, With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies. EDGAR ALLAN POE (For Annie). THE ORCHARD-LANDS OF LONG AGO* THE orchard-lands of Long Ago! Is sweeter than the apple's is. Of merriment that found the shine Of summer-time a glorious wine By permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., from "Rhymes of Childhood," copyright, 1900. |