ON HIS BLINDNESS.-Milton.

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" I fondly ask: But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.'

"

WHAT BOOTS THE QUEST?-WORDSWORTH.
Alas! what boots the long, laborious quest
Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill;
Or pains abstruse, to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcendent rest
Where every passion shall the sway attest
Of reason, seated on her sovereign hill?
What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie depressed
Beneath the brutal sword? Her haughty schools
Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day,
Than all the pride of intellect and thought?

LAMENT FOR GLENCAIRN.-BURNS

Ye scattered birds that faintly sing,
The reliques of the vernal choir!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honors of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;
But nocht in all revolving time

Can gladness bring again to me.

The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee:
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!

CORONACH.-SCOTT.

He is gone on the mountain, he is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain, when our need was the sorest;
The fount, reappearing, from the rain-drops shall borow,
But to us comes no cheering, to Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper wails manhood in glory;
The autumn winds rushing waft the leaves that are serest,
But our flower was in flushing when blighting was nearest.—
Fleet foot on the correi, sage counsel in cumber,

Red hand in the foray, how sound is thy slumber!

Like the dew on the mountain, like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, thou art gone and forever!

HUMAN FRAILTY.-DRUMMOND.

A good, that never satisfies the mind;
A beauty fading like the April flowers;

A sweet, with floods of gall that runs combined;
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours;
An honor, that more fickle is than wind;

A glory, at opinion's frown that lours;

A treasury, which bankrupt time devours;

A knowledge, than grave ignorance more blind;
A vain delight our equals to command;
A style of greatness, in effect a dream;
A swelling thought of holding sea and land;
A servile lot decked with a pompous name,—
Are the strange ends we toil for here below,
Till wisest Death make us our errors know.

VIRTUE.-HERBERT.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;
But, though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.-WORDSWORTH.
Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did Sun more beautifully steep,

In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

LOVE. SHAKSPEARE.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever fixèd mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CROSSING THE BAR.-TENNYSON.

Sunset and evening star

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep. Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark.

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

MILTON.-WORDSWORTH.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh, raise us up, return to us again!

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart :
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

BOSOM SIN. - HERBERT.

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,—
Pulpits and Sundays; sorrow, dogging sin;
Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes;
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in;
Bibles laid open; millions of surprises;
Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness;
The sound of glory ringing in our ears;
Without, our shame; within, our consciences;
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears:
Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom sin blows quite away.

NEVER AGAIN.-STODDARD.

There are gains for all our losses,

There are balms for all our pain;
But when youth the dream departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
We are stronger, and are better,

Under manhood's sterner reign;
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain;
We seek it everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,

But it never comes again!

DISAPPOINTMENT.-Lowell.

I pray thee call not this society;

I asked for bread, thou givest me a stone;
I am an hungered, and I find not one
To give me meat, to joy or grieve with me;
I find not here what I went out to see-

Souls of true men, of women who can move
The deeper, better part of us to love,

Souls that can hold with mine communion free.
Alas! must then these hopes, these longings high,
This yearning of the soul for brotherhood,

And all that makes us pure, and wise, and good, Come, broken-hearted, home again to die? No, Hope is left, and prays with bended head, "Give us this day, O God, our daily bread!"

CHANGE.-DRUMMOND.

Triumphing chariots, statues, crowns of bays, Sky-threatening arches, the rewards of worth, Books heavenly wise in sweet harmonious lays, Which men divine unto the world set forth; States, which ambitious minds in blood do raise, From frozen Tanais unto sun-burnt Gange; Gigantic frames, held wonders rarely strange,— Like spiders' webs, are made the sport of days. Nothing is constant but inconstant change:

What's done is still undone, and, when undone, Into some other fashion it doth range.

Thus goes the floating world beneath the Moon: Wherefore, my mind, above time, motion, place, Rise up, and steps unknown to Nature trace.

THE SKYLARK.-HOGG.

Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness

Blest is thy dwelling place,

O to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud,

Far in the downy cloud,

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where on thy dewy wing,

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth,
O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,