UNCROWNED KINGS. BERKELEY AIKEN (BRITISH-ABOUT 1864). O ye uncrowned but kingly kings! Made royal by the brain and heart; Of all earth's wealth the noblest part, Yet reckoned nothing in the mart
Where men know naught but sordid things,— All hail to you, most kingly kings!
O ye uncrowned but kingly kings! Whose breath and words of living flame Have waked slaved nations from their shame, And bid them rise in manhood's name,-
CRADOCK NEWTON (ENGLISH-1851).
Mournfully listening to the waves' strange talk, And marking, with a sad and moistened eye, The summer days sink down behind the sea,- Sink down beneath the level brine, and fall Into the Hades of forgotten things,-
A mighty longing stealeth o'er the soul; As of a man who panteth to behold His idol in another land-if yet
Her heart be treasured for him,-if her eyes Have yet the old love in them. Even so, With passion strong as love and deep as death, Yearneth the spirit after Wonderland.
ANONYMOUS AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
Ah, happy, happy land! The busy soul Calls up in pictures of the half-shut eye Thy shores of splendor: as a fair blind girl, Who thinks the roses must be beautiful, But cannot see their beauty. Olden tones, Borne on the bosom of the breeze from far,— Angels that came to the young heart in dreams, And then, like birds of passage, flew away,— Return. The rugged steersman at the wheel Softens into a cloudy shape. The sails Move to a music of their own. Brave bark, Speed well, and bear us unto Wonderland!
Leave far behind thee the vexed earth, where men Spend their dark days in weaving their owu shrouds ;
And Fraud and Wrong are crownéd kings; and Toil Hath chains for hire; and all creation groans, Crying, in its great bitterness, to God; And Love can never speak the thing it feels, Or save the thing it loves,-is succorless.
For, if one say "I love thee," what poor words They are! While they are spoken, the beloved Travelleth, as a doomed lamb, the road of death; And sorrow blanches the fair hair, and pales The tinted cheek. Not so in Wonderland!
There larger natures sport themselves at ease 'Neath kindlier suns that nurture fairer flowers, And richer harvests billow in the vales, And passionate kisses fall on godlike brows As summer rain. And never know they there The passion that is desolation's prey; The bitter tears begotten of farewells; Endless renunciations, when the heart Loseth the all it lived for; vows forgot, Cold looks, estrangéd voices,-all the woes That poison earth's delight. For love endures, Nor fades, nor changes, in the Wonderland.
Alas! the rugged steersman at the wheel Comes back again to vision. The hoarse sca Speaketh from its great heart of discontent, And in the misty distance dies away. The Wonderland!-Tis past and gone. O soul! While yet unbodied thou didst summer there, God saw thee, led thee forth from thy green haunts, And bade thee know another world, less fair, Less calm! Ambition, knowledge, and desire Drove from thee thy first worship. Live and
Believe and wait; and it may be that he Will guide thee back again to Wonderland.
BY "THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD" (SEE PAGE 277).
Could this ill warld ha'e been contrived
To stand without mischievous woman, How peacefu' bodies might ha'e lived, Released frae a' the ills sae common ! But since it is the waefu' case
That man maun ha'e this teasing crony, Why sic a sweet bewitching face?
O had she no been made sae bonny!
I might ha'e roamed wi' cheerfu' mind, Nae sin or sorrow to betide me, As careless as the wandering wind, As happy as the lamb beside me:
I might ha'e screwed my tunefu' pegs, And carolled mountain-airs fu' gayly, Had we but wanted a' the Megs, Wi' glossy een sae dark an' wily.
I saw the danger, feared the dart,
The smile, the air, an' a' sae taking; Yet open laid my wareless heart, An' gat the wound that keeps me waking. My harp waves on the willow green,Of wild witch-notes it has nae ony Sin e'er I saw that pawky quean, Sae sweet, sae wicked, an' sae bonny!
EDWARD JOHNSON, M.D. (London Metropolitan Magazine-1837).
Oh, water for me! Bright water for me! And wine for the tremulous debauchee! It cooleth the brow, it cooleth the brain, It maketh the faint one strong again;
It comes o'er the sense like a breeze from the sea, All freshness, like infant purity.
Oh, water, bright water, for me, for me! Give wine, give wine to the debauchee!
Fill to the brim! Fill, fill to the brim! Let the flowing crystal kiss the rim! For my hand is steady, my eye is true, For I, like the flowers, drink naught but dew. Oh! water, bright water's a mine of wealth, And the ores it yieldeth are vigor and health. So water, pure water, for me, for me! And wine for the tremulous debauchee!
JOHN TODHUNTER, AUTHOR OF "LAURELLA, AND OTHER POEMS," LONDON, 1876.
But one short week ago the trees were bare ; And winds were keen, and violets pinched with frost; Winter was with us; but the larches tossed Lightly their crimson buds, and here and there Rooks cawed. To-day the Spring is in the air And in the blood: sweet sun-gleams come and go Upon the hills; in lanes the wild flowers blow, And tender leaves are bursting everywhere. About the hedge the small birds peer and dart, Each bush is full of amorous flutterings And little rapturous cries. The thrush apart Sits throned, and loud his ripe contralto rings. Music is on the wind,—and, in my heart, Infinite love for all created things!
ANONYMOUS (BRITISH-19th Century).
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod And waits to see it push away the clod,He trusts in God.
Whoever says, when clouds are in the sky, "Be patient, heart; light breaketh by-and-by," Trusts the Most High.
Whoever sees, 'neath Winter's field of snow, The silent harvest of the future grow,God's power must know.
Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep, Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, Knows God will keep.
Whoever says, "To-morrow," "The Unknown,” "The Future," trusts that Power alone, He dares disown.
The heart that looks on when the eyelids close, And dares to live when life has only woes, God's comfort knows.
And day by day, and night, unconsciously, The heart lives by that faith the lips denyGod knoweth why!
ON A VIRTUOUS YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN WHO DIED SUDDENLY.
These lines, given in some collections as anonymous, were written by William Cartwright, born in England in 1611, and educated at Oxford. He took orders, and in 1643 became junior proctor and reader in metaphysics at the University, but died the same year of a malignant fever. A collected edition of his "Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, and other Poems," appeared in 1647, and again in 1651. He seems to have been a favorite with his contemporaries; and Ben Jonson remarked of him, "My son Cartwright writes all like a man." He must have cultivated poetry in his youth, for he was only twenty-six at the time of the death of Jonson, whose loss he mourned in a eulogy of which the following lines are a specimen:
"But thou still putt'st true passion on; dost write With the same courage that tried captains fight; Giv'st the right blush and color unto things; Low without creeping, high without loss of wings; Smooth yet not weak, and, by a thorough care, Big without swelling, without painting, fair."
When the old flaming Prophet climbed the sky, Who at one glimpse did vanish, and not die, He made more preface to a death than this: So far from sick she did not breathe amiss. She who to Heaven more heaven doth annex, Whose lowest thought was above all our sex, Accounted nothing death but t' be reprieved, And died as free from sickness as she lived. Others are dragged away, or must be driven; She only saw her time, and stepped to Heaven, Where Seraphims view all her glories o'er As one returned, that had been there before. For while she did this lower world adorn, Her body seemed rather assumed than born: So rarefied, advanced, so pure and whole, That body might have been another's soul; And equally a miracle it were
That she could die, or that she could live here.
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