O bliss, when all in circle drawn About him, heart and ear were fed, To hear him, as he lay and read The Tuscan poets on the lawn;

Or in the all-golden afternoon

A guest, or happy sister, sung,

Or here she brought the harp, and flung

A ballad to the brightening moon!

Nor less it pleased, in livelier moods,

Beyond the bounding hill to stray, And break the livelong summer day With banquet in the distant woods;

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme,
Discussed the books to love or hate,
Or touched the changes of the state,
Or threaded some Socratic dream.

But if I praised the busy town,

He loved to rail against it still, For "ground in yonder social mill, We rub each other's angles down,

"And merge," he said, "in form and gloss
The picturesque of man and man."
We talked; the stream beneath us ran,
The wine-flask lying couched in moss,

Or cooled within the glooming wave;
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave,

And brushing ankle deep in flowers, We heard behind the woodbine veil The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honeyed hours.

THY converse drew us with delight, The men of rathe and riper years; The feeble soul, a haunt of fears; Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

On thee the loyal-hearted hung,

The proud was half disarmed of pride; Nor cared the serpent at thy side To flicker with his treble tongue.

The stern were mild when thou wert by;
The flippant put himself to school
And heard thee; and the brazen fool
Was softened, and he knew not why;

While I, thy dearest sat apart,

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And felt thy triumph was as mine; And loved them more, that they were thine, The graceful tact, the Christian art;

Not mine the sweetness or the skill,

But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative will.

DEAR friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near, in woe and weal;
O, loved the most when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown, human, divine!
Sweet human hand and lips and eye,
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine!

Strange friend, past, present, and to be,
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold I dream a dream of good
And mingle all the world with thee.

THY voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.

What art thou, then? I cannot guess; But though I seem in star and flower To feel thee, some diffusive power,

I do not therefore love thee less:

My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;
Though mixed with God and Nature thou
I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;

I have thee still, and I rejoice. I prosper, circled with thy voice; I shall not lose thee, though I die.

ALFRED TENNYSON

The voices which are silent there
Would bid thee clear thy brow;
We have been sad together-
O! what shall part us now?

CAROLINE NORTON.

GIVE ME THE OLD.

OLD WINE TO DRINK, OLD WOOD to burn, old

The same my sire scanned before,
The same my grandsire thumbed o'er,
The same his sire from college bore,
The well-earned meed

Of Oxford's domes:
Old HOMER blind,

Old HORACE, rake ANACREON, by

Old TULLY, PLAUTUS, TERENCE lie;
Mort ARTHUR's olden minstrelsie,

Quaint BURTON, quainter SPENSER, ay!
And GERVASE MARKHAM's venerie-
Nor leave behind

VERSE WITH.