"Oh, mother, scholars sometimes fail, And what can foot and leg avail To him that wants a tongue?" When by her ironing-board I sit, And bring me forth their storeDark cluster grapes of dusty blue, And small sweet apples bright of hue, And crimson to the core. But she abideth silent, fair; The blushes come and go: I look, and I no more can speak Than the red sun that on her cheek Smiles as he lieth low. Sometimes the roses by the latch Come sailing down like birds; When from their drifts her board I clear, She thanks me, but I scarce can hear The shyly-uttered words. Oft have I wooed sweet Lettice White By daylight and by candlelight When we two were apart; Some better day come on apace, And let me tell her face to face, Maiden, thou hast my heart." How gently rock yon poplars high With heaven's pale candles stored! She sees them all, sweet Lettice White; I'll e'en go sit again to-night Beside her ironing-board. JEAN INGELOW. Like to the grass that's newly sprung, Or like a tale that's new-begun, Or like the bird that's here to-day, Or like the pearlèd dew of May, Or like an hour, or like a span, Or like the singing of a swan,E'en such is man, who lives by breath, Is here, now there, in life and death. The grass withers, the tale is ended, The bird is flown, the dew's ascended, The hour is short, the span is long, The swan's near death, man's life is done. SIMON WASTELL. HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER. ELL me, ye maidens, whither | The spacious city, when he now approached went from home Andromache the fair? Went she to see father's house, Or to Minerva's temple, field, There, hasting home again, his noble wife Her female kindred of my Met him, Andromache the rich-endowed, where, convened, To whom his household's governess discreet: That the Achaians had prevailed and driven With grief, flew thither, and the nurse her Whose widowhood is near, for thou wilt fall The populous, was by Achilles sacked, Armed as it was, his body on the pile, My seven brothers, glory of our house, But guard this turret, lest of me thou make At yonder fig trees; station there thy Nor feel I such a wish. No! I have learned When Priam and the people of the old But for no Trojan sorrows yet to come As for thyself, when some Achaian chief This was the wife of Hector, who excelled All Troy in fight when Ilium was besieged.' Such he shall speak thee, and thy heart the while Shall bleed afresh through want of such a friend To stand between captivity and thee. So saying, illustrious Hector stretched his arm Forth to his son, but with a scream the child Fell back into the bosom of his nurse, His father's aspect dreading, whose bright | Drew vital breath in Ilium, most to me.' arms Hair-crested. His Andromache, at once No sooner at the palace she arrived In earnest prayer the heavenly powers im- Her numerous maidens found within she plored : raised "Hear, all ye gods! As ye have given to A general lamentation; with one voice me, So also on my son excelling might He said, and gave his infant to the arms That sight observed, soft touched her cheek, and said: "Mourn not, my loved Andromache, for me Too much; no man shall send me to the shades Of Tartarus ere mine allotted hour, Go, then, and occupy content at home The woman's province; ply the distaff, spin And weave and task thy maidens. War belongs To man-to all men; and, of all who first In his own house his whole domestic train Mourned Hector yet alive, for none the hope Conceived of his escape from Grecian hands, Or to behold their living master more. Translation of WILLIAM COWPER. THE POWER OF THOUGHT. As bursts the lightning o'er a stormy sky, So thought amid life's tumult flashes forth; For mighty minds at rest too often lie, Like clouds in upper air, cold, calm and high, Till, tempest-tossed and driven toward the earth, They meet the uprising mass, and then is wrought The burning thunderbolt of human thought That sends the living light of truth abroad And rouses from the tomb of wan despair The peoples half consumed in slavery, Whose eager eyes suck in th' illumined air, And flash back hope to thought that makes them free, Shivering like glass the towers of force and fraud, And aweing the bowed world like oracle of God. SARAH JOSEPHA HALE. LEILA. OFTLY through the pome granate groves Blushes, charmed from the decay That wastes other blooms away Told till the wood-fire grows pale Came the gentle song of the Gardens of the fairy-tale doves; Shone the fruit in the even- By the Arab tribes when night With its dim and lovely light, ing light Like Indian rubies blood-red And its silence, suiteth well With the magic tales they tell. Shook the date trees each Through that cypress avenue and bright; tufted head As the passing wind their And like dark columns amid the sky prow Gathered and hung of the evening's rays, Where the glory of the rose |