other. It is a theme, therefore, which needed no inventive genius to find it out, and the poet who deals with it must be judged solely by the amount and nature of the new light which he sheds upon it.

"In the pleasant orchard closes,

'God bless all our gains,' say we; But, May God bless all our losses,' Better suits with our degree."

On this key-note the song opens, and we feel at once that it is a plaintive minor. We have then a sketch of that pleasant mother-land of infancy and childhood, with its "summer snows of apple. blossoms running up from glade to glade," which reposes among beauty and regrets in a quiet, sacred corner of every one's memory. There is the childhood's valley, and in the valley is the wood, and in the wood is the bower, and "over all, in choral silence, the hills look you their all bail !" The child's solitary journey to the wood is described, and the first bursting of the bower upon the entranced vision:

"Oh, the golden-hearted daisies

Witness'd there, before my youth, To the truth of things, with praises To the beauty of the truth.

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And I woke to nature's real, laughing joyfully for both." Light-hearted, yet full-hearted, she vowed that every day she would return to the bower; and she kept her vow; but "next morning all had vanished, or my wandering missed the place," and "I never more upon it turned my mortal countenance." It was the beginning of her losses, a list or specimen of which she gives us :

"I have lost the dream of doing,

And the other dream of done

The first spring in the pursuing,
The first pride in the begun;

First recoil from incompletion in the face of what is won.
Exaltations in the far light,

Where some cottage only is,

Mild dejections in the starlight,
Which the sadder-hearted miss,

And the child-cheek blushing scarlet, for the very shame of bliss.

I have lost the sound child-sleeping,
Which the thunder could not break;

Something, too, of the strong leaping
Of the stag-like heart awake,

Which the pale is low for keeping in the road it ought to take."

But the song must not close thus; at least, it must not, and will not, close thus to the spirit who has rightly undergone the discipline of the losses which the loss of the bower prefigured and necessitated. The time was long past, and the place far away; the discipline of life lay in the scene between the then and the now; but, shutting her eyes, and calling upon " unchanging recollections," the bower rose up before the spirit's eye, fresh and fair as it first appeared to the child's vision. Here is the exultant finale :

"Is the bower lost then? Who sayeth
That the bower indeed is lost?

Hark! my spirit in it prayeth,

Through the solstice and the frost,

And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and utter

most

Till another open for me,

In God's Eden-land unknown;
With an angel at the doorway,

White with gazing at his throne,

And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing, All is LOST

and won!"

The "Brown Rosary" is pitched on a higher key, and takes in a wider range of thought; but it also is a song of losses, and of gains through losses. In the "Lost Bower" we have delineated, under the guise of a child's story, the disenchanting process through which nature passes, or seems to pass, as it presents itself day after day, and

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year after year, to the eye and heart which are incessantly changed and modified by the evershifting phenomena and events of time. The theme and moral of the "Brown Rosary" are indicated in these lines:

"Then breaking into tears-'Dear God!' she cried; 'and must we see

All blissful things depart from us, or ere we go to Thee!"

It is a sermon on the text-" He that loveth father or mother, wife or children, more than me, is not worthy of me." It has more of incident than the "Lost Bower," and its structure and motion are more diversified. Orona was betrothed to a noble and generous lover, and both seemed to be well fitted for each other. This human love was all in all to Orona. She could not see beyond it; she could not live without it; and for it she was willing to sacrifice the love and hope of heaven. This mood of mind is brought out with admirable artistic skill by the machinery of a dream, in which Orona, her dead father, angels, and the ghost of a false nun, who, lost herself by earthly love, tempts Orona to a like ruin, are interlocutors. A little brother of Orona's is also introduced, who is supposed to be conversant with the whole matter, and plays the explanatory part of the chorus in the Greek tragedies. Orona, the betrothed, was doomed to die, as we learn from the dream. She says:

"We heard, beside the heavenly gate, the angels murmuring:

We heard them say, 'Put day to day, and count the days to seven,

And God will draw Orona up the golden stairs to heaven; And yet the evil ones have leave that purpose to defer, For if she has no need of HIM, he has no need of her.'

Evil Spirit.

Speak out to me--speak bold and free.

Orona in sleep.

And then I heard thee say-I count upon my rosary brown the hours thou hast to stay!

Yet God permits us evil ones to put by that decree,
For if thou hast no need of Him, he has no need of thee;
And if thou wilt forego the sight of angels, verily,
Thy true love, gazing on thy face, shall guess what an-
gels be.'"'

Orona did not choose the better part. Poor girl! her human love overcame her :

"Love feareth death. 1 was no child; was betrothed that day:

I wore a troth-kiss on my lips I could not give away. How could I bear to lie content and still beneath a stone, And feel mine own betrothed go by-alas, no more mine

own!

Go leading by, in wedding pomp, some lovely lady brave, With cheeks that blush'd as red as rose, while mine were cold in grave?

How could I bear to sit in heaven, on e'er so high a throne, And hear him say to her-to her!-that else he loveth none? Though e'er so high Isate above, though e'er so low he spake, As clear as thunder I should hear the new oath he might take

That hers, forsooth, are heavenly eyes-ah, me! while very dim

Some heavenly eyes (indeed of heaven) would darken down to him."

Orona being thus overcome, she vowed this fearful vow, which had power to defer the purpose of the good angels. She addresses, in sleep, the ghost of the nun

"I vow'd upon thy rosary brown-and, till such vow should break,

A pledge always of living days 'twas hung around my neck

I vow'd to thee on rosary (dead father, look not so !),

I would not thank God in my weal nor seek God in my wo!"

The current of human love was now free to take its course. The bridal morn arrived. The little brother mixed in the joyous throng, but not as part of it, not as a happy heart. On the way to the church, and again in the church, he reproached his sister with wearing on her bosom a brown rosary. The mother frowned on her boy; the bridegroom laughed; the priest said the boy was wild, and approved the piety of the bride; and "the maiden's lips trembled with smiles shut within." The ceremony proceeded. A mocking laugh broke in upon it, but none could find out who the mockers were. The priest was perplexed. He could not name the great name

"And each saw the bride, as if no bride she were, Gazing cold at the priest, without gesture of prayer, As he read from the psalter."

At length the rite was finished, and “they who knelt down together, arise up as one." Orona's vow renouncing heaven has won for her humau love. But only for a moment. The cup was lifted to her lips only to be dashed to the ground. The bridegroom glared blank and wide. He kissed his bride, but his lips stung her with cold. He called her his own wife, and "fell stark at her feet in the word he was saying: "

"She look'd in his face earnest long, as, in sooth,

There were hope of an answer, and then kiss'd his mouth; And, with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly— 'Now, O God, take pity, take pity on me!

God, hear my beseeching!'

She was 'ware of a shadow that cross'd where she lay--
She was 'ware of a presence that wither'd the day;
Wild, she sprang to her feet- I surrender to Thee
The broken vow's pledge, the accursed rosary :
I am ready for dying!"

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Time's enchantments were now broken; and,

not of the highest order; and that if, while lov

Orona first beheld the day-spring of the love that is divine. We have the moral of the poem in these her last words :

"She spoke with passion after pause-' And were it wisely done,

If we who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth alone? If we whose virtue is so weak, should have a will so strong, And stand blind on the rocks to choose the right path from the wrong ?

To choose, perhaps, a love-lit hearth instead of love and heaven;

A single rose for a rose-tree, which beareth seven times seven;

A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast,

Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best.' Then breaking into tears- Dear God!' she cried; and

must we see

All blissful things depart from us, or ere we go to THEE? We cannot guess thee in the wood, or hear thee in the

wind:

Our cedars must fall round us ere we see the light behind. Ay sooth, we feel too strong in weal to need thee on that road;

But wo being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on God.'"'

We have noticed these two poems together, because we think the one has its completeness in the other, and both are required to the full development of the leading thought which runs through them. In both we have an exhibition of beautiful and lovely things-lovely, and deserving to be loved, because they are beautiful and true. In both, we are taught that this beauty is

higher beauty, our idols will become dim, will cease to fill our hearts, or will be dashed to pieces before our eyes. Thus it is with nature, as she presents herself to the young, susceptible heart; and thus it is with that higher phase of the beautiful which comes in the fascinations of young affection. We cannot love the one or the other too well, if, at the same time, we keep open heart to a higher love. The "Lost Bower" is recovered; the "splendor in the grass, the glory in the flower," are restored by the "prayer," which 'preserves them greenly to the last and uttermost;" and though, in the “Brown Rosary," poor Orona's human love was blighted beyond the power of prayer to revive it, her blighted earthly hopes were the soil in which sprung up for her the first heavenly flowers.

We have only further to express a hope, that the extracts we have laid before our readers will impress them with a favorable opinion of Mrs. Browning's poetry. It is a source of high and pure delight to us, and we wish, therefore, that its gifted authoress were better known in this northern land. It bears the test of re-perusal better than most poetry with which we are acquainted; which comes, we presume, from the combination and fusion of strong thought with the finest feeling. It was not without reason, and Alfred Tennyson need not take it amiss, that Mrs. Browning was named in some quarters for the laureateship, on the death of Wordsworth.

Thus fade they, ever, ever-
To fade is beauty's doom;
They come as hopes, but never
May ripen into bloom.

A little shadow chills them,
The sun may scorch anon;

The frost-wind calls, the shadow falls,

And the beautiful are gone.

O hope not ever, ever,

A bright thing shall endure! If it be but "very beautiful," The end of it is sure.

Hopes dear as life, an angel wife

A child-a darling one-

The frost-wind calls, the shadow falls, And the beautiful are gone.

Death is a tasteful spoiler,

He hath a dainty eye

The young for him, and the light of limb,

Though weary ones are by.

He will steal into a circle,

With his shadow darkening on,

And the frost-wind calls, and the shadow falls,

And the beautiful are gone.

Yet stay thee not, oh, angel!

It is thy mission here;

And all are thine, by grant divine,
The fresh leaf, and the sere.
But only come for me too,
With the beautiful anon;

I will journey with thee gladly,
To know where they are gone.

THERE are few things which I like better to meet with in my wanderings, than an old tree. When I see one upon which the storms of some hundred winters have wasted themselves, sad and solemn feelings always come over me; I feel as if I could linger long about it; and sometimes, strange as it may appear, I could even prostrate myself before it, in mute awe and admiration. It is not that there is anything very beautiful in an old tree-sometimes it is even the reverse; and when I pause to look at some broken trunk, with scarce a mark of verdure remaining on it, my friend who is with me will pull my arm, and wonder what I see in that to stare at. But to me, an old tree brings with it associations of a very interesting and pleasing character; and it is for these that I love to look upon it, and feel a kind of friendship for it.

In the first place, the delightful idea of constancy associates itself with an old tree. Amidst the rush and push of this world's changes, there it has remained immovable for centuries; and whilst cities have crumbled away, and kingdoms have been revolutionized, and great empires have risen and fallen, it has "taken root downward, and borne fruit upward," and, year by year, its branches have spread themselves overhead as a green canopy, and it has helped to make the face of nature lovelier and more beautiful. There is one tree in my neighborhood-I think it is said that nine hundred years have rolled their clouds and played their lightnings over it-under which I remember gamboling when I was a child; and, though many changes have since then come over me, and I have had my share-I think sometimes, as I suppose most people do, more than my share-of dark days and sorrowful ones; though friends whom I had loved have forsaken me, and some have turned away from me, who I never thought would have done so; I go now occasionally, and I find the tree unaltered:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man:'

the marks of age, perhaps, are more apparent, but it smiles upon me as it did of old; and in recalling, as I almost can, the sweet and innocent thoughts and emotions which I indulged under it, and the remembrance of the dear departed

ones with whom I stood at its feet, I can almost bring back the days so long gone, and fancy myself a boy again. And I am not the only one whom this old tree has cheered thus and encou raged: it smiled upon others before it smiled on me; and it will continue to smile when I am gone and departed. The traveler has many a time looked upon it, as he has passed the village in which it stands; and the broken down soldier has recognized it with a tear, as he has returned after many battles to the quiet home of his boyhood. For many a year the swallow, returning from her annual visit to a milder climate, has always found its branches ready for her as a resting-place; and in many a summer, the panting flocks have sought and found under it a grateful shade. How many things are there which the world has less cause to be grateful to than it has to an old tree!

But an old tree has always associated with it thoughts of the past. How many persons have gazed upon it who will never gaze upon it again; and with what different emotions has it been gazed upon at different times, and by different classes of character! The noble has gazed upon it as he dashed by in his chariot; and the poor lame beggar, as he hobbled past on his crutch. Perhaps, in some dark night, when the moon was hidden behind the clouds, and scarce a star was seen in the firmament, and the cold wind blew, and the drizzling rain descended, which kept all but the wicked or the houseless wanderer within doors, the murderer may have arranged his plot; or even upon the very ground over which its shade is cast, he may have carried it into execution; and the old tree may have listened to the cry of the murdered man, and seen his blood as it mixed with the green grass around it. Centuries ago, the Druid may under it have offered his human sacrifice; and near it, may have rattled in the night wind the chains and bones which hung upon the gibbet. What tales it could tell, if it could but speak to us, of England in the olden time; and what revelations could it furnish of events, but now imperfectly pictured forth to us in the fictions of history! It has heard the old men talk of Alfred and of Canute, of the Conquest and William the Norman; the tales of the Plantagenets and the Lancasters have been told in its presence; it could speak to us of Magna

Charta and of the Crusades, of Harry the Eighth and the Reformation; it heard men talk with glistening eye of John Hampden and of Cromwell, and how they stood up gloriously against tyrants, and overthrew them; it listened to their deep murmurs at the tyranny of James, and to their shouts of delight at the accession of the Prince of Orange; it heard them while they talked in whispers of the Plague, and of the number dying daily, and how they were carried in carts, and thrown uncoffined into the grave; and it has seen how the world, amidst its ups and downs, has been going forward all the while; and how, from all things being a monopoly of the few, the rights of the many have come gradually to be recognized, so that the "greatest happiness of all" is likely yet to become the politics of the world. Old tree! wilt thou not open thyself to us, and reveal the secrets to which thou hast been a party!

There is one lesson which we may very properly

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learn from the contemplation of an old tree. Amidst all the changes which have occurred around it, and notwithstanding the storms which have beaten upon it, it has stood firm and unmoved. How calmly it has witnessed the joys and sorrows, the crimes and miseries, of the world! Oh, to be as patient as the old tree amidst the storms and battles of life; ever, amidst changes and uncertainties, fulfilling our high duty and destiny!

I never like to see an old tree cut down. When the woodman's axe approaches it, and I observe upon it the mark which dooms it to destruction, my soul protests against the sacrilege. It seems as if a part of myself were gone, when an old familiar tree is removed-as if one of my ties to this green earth were snapped asunder. But perhaps it is better so. My friends of all kinds are dying away; and it is well that I should sometimes be reminded that I soon must follow them.