THE BANKS O' DOON.

YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,

And I sae weary, fu' o' care?

Thou 't break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed-never to return.

Thou 't break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;

For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wistna o' my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,

To see the rose and woodbine twine;

And ilka bird sang o' its luve,

And, fondly, sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pou'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

ROBERT BURNS.

SONNET.

66
FROM ASTROPHEL AND STELLA."

WITH how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies,

How silently, and with how wan a face!
What may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

AGATHA.

SHE wanders in the April woods,
That glisten with the fallen shower;
She leans her face against the buds,
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour:

She broodeth when the ringdove broods;
The sun and flying clouds have power

Upon her cheek and changing moods.
She cannot think she is alone,

As over her senses warmly steal
Floods of unrest she fears to own
And almost dreads to feel.

Among the summer woodlands wide
Anew she roams, no more alone;
The joy she feared is at her side,

Spring's blushing secret now is known.
The primrose and its mates have flown,
The thrush's ringing note hath died;
But glancing eye and glowing tone
Fall on her from her god, her guide.

She knows not, asks not, what the goal,
She only feels she moves towards bliss,
And yields her pure unquestioning soul
To touch and fondling kiss.

And still she haunts those woodland ways,
Though all fond fancy finds there now
To mind of spring or summer days,

Are sodden trunk and songless bough.
The past sits widowed on her brow,
Homeward she wends with wintry gaze,
To walls that house a hollow vow,
To hearth where love hath ceased to blaze;
Watches the clammy twilight wane,

With grief too fixed for woe or tear; And, with her forehead 'gainst the pane, Envies the dying year.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

THE SUN-DIAL.

"T is an old dial, dark with many a stain;

In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom,

Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain,
And white in winter like a marble tomb.

And round about its gray, time-eaten brow
Lean letters speak, a worn and shattered row:
I am a Shade: a Shadowe too art thou:

I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe? Here would the ring-doves linger, head to head; And here the snail a silver course would run, Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun.

The tardy shade moved forward to the noon;
Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept,
That swung a flower, and smiling hummed a
tune,-

Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt.

O'er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed; About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone; And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed, Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone.

She leaned upon the slab a little while,

Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone, Scribbled a something with a frolic smile,

Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone.

The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail; There came a second lady to the place,

Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale,

An inner beauty shining from her face.

She, as if listless with a lonely love,
Straying among the alleys with a book,-
Herrick or Herbert, watched the circling dove,
And spied the tiny letter in the nook.

Then, like to one who confirmation found

Of some dread secret half-accounted true,— Who knew what hearts and hands the letter bound,

And argued loving commerce 'twixt the two,

She bent her fair young forehead on the stone; The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head; And 'twixt her taper fingers pearled and shone The single tear that tear-worn eyes will shed.

The shade slipped onward to the falling gloom; Then came a soldier gallant in her stead, Swinging a beaver with a swaling plume,

A ribboned love-lock rippling from his head.

Blue-eyed, frank-faced, with clear and open brow, Scar-seamed a little, as the women love;

So kindly fronted that you marvelled how

The frequent sword-hilt had so frayed his