APRIL I

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

OH,

H, to be in England now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England sees, some
morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dew-drops-at the bent spray's edge—

That's the wise thrush he sings each song twice

over

Lest you should think he never could recapture
That first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

ROBERT BROWNING

WE

TO PARIS

E journeyed fast through flowery NormanFrance, And saw green rounded slopes where milky-ways Of starry primrose wandered, and long sprays Of dipping sallows meshed the river's glance. A thousand April lights with golden lance Held joyous tourney. Here, in Corot's greys, Drowsed hoary orchards; there a twinkling maze Of thin-stemmed poplars seemed to shiver and dance

As we flew past. What nameless hamlets lay With blue-black, huddled roofs round one old spire;

And in the landscape's picture-gallery wide

What charm, form, colour through the delicate day! Then, housed and peaceful by the crackling fire, We heard the pulse of Paris beat outside.

G. M. SEYMOUR

SPRI

PRING speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,

And all our wide glad wastes a-flower around, That twice have heard keen April's clarion sound Since here we first together saw and heard Spring's light reverberate and reiterate word Shine forth and speak in season.

crowned

Life stands

Here with the best one thing it ever found, As of my soul's best birthdays dawns the third.

There is a friend that as the wise man saith
Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me

Hath time not shown thro' days like waves at
strife

This truth more sure than all things else but death, This pearl most perfect found in all the sea

That washes toward your feet these waifs of life.

SWINBURNE

To Theodore Watts-Dunton

TRUST

`HE same old baffling questions! O my friend, I cannot answer them. In vain I send My soul into the dark, where never burn

The lamps of Science, nor the natural light Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn Their great and solemn meanings, nor discern The awful secrets of the eyes which turn

Evermore on us through the day and night With silent challenge and a dumb demand, Proffering the riddles of the dread unknown, Like the calm sphinxes, with their eyes of stone, Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand! I have no answer for myself and thee,

Save that I learned beside my mother's knee;
"All is of God that is, and is to be;

And God is good". Let this suffice us still,
Resting in childlike trust upon His will

Who moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill.

WHITTIER

THE

'HE loss, if loss there be, is mine, And yet not mine if understood; For one shall grasp and one resign, One drink life's rue, and one its wine, And God shall make the balance good.

O power to do! O baffled will!

O prayer and action! ye are one. Who may not strive, may yet fulfil The harder task of standing still,

And good but wished with God is done.

WHITTIER