Meantime, a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By-degrees
The human blossom blows, and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.
The infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought-
To teach-the-young-idea how to shoot,
To pour-the-fresh-instruction o'er the mind -
To breathe th' enlivening spirit and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while ye look around

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All-various nature pressing on the heart:
An elegant sufficiency content -

Retirement - rural quiet - friendship -books -
Ease and alternate labour useful life.

Progressive virtue and approving heaven:-
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love,
And thus their moments fly. The seasons thus,
As ceaseless round-a-jarring-world they roll,
Still find them happy, and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads -
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild,
When, after-the-long-vernal-day-of-life
Enamour'd more as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their spirits fly

To scenes where love-and-bliss immortal reign.

Victoria's Tears.

Barrett.

"O MAIDEN, heir of kings,
A king has left his place;
The majesty-of-death has swept
All other from his face.
And thou upon-thy-mother's-breast
No longer lean adown

But take the glory for the rest,

And rule the land that loves thee best."
The maiden wept;

She wept to wear a crown.

They deck'd her courtly halls They rein'd her hundred steeds They shouted at-her-palace-gate "A noble Queen succeeds!" Her name has stirr'd the mountains' sleep, Her praise has fill'd the town: And mourners God-had-stricken-deep Look'd hearkening up, and did not weep! Alone she wept

Who wept to wear a crown.

She saw no purple shine,

For tears had dimm'd her eyes She only knew her childhood's flowers Were happier pageantries!

And while-the-heralds-play'd-their-part,

For million shouts to drown

"God save the Queen" from hill to mart,· She heard, through all, her beating heart, And turn'd and wept!

She wept to wear a crown.

110

God save thee, weeping Queen!
Thou shalt be well beloved,
The tyrant's sceptre cannot move
As those pure tears have moved:
The nature in-thine-eye we see
Which tyrants cannot own
The love that guardeth liberties;
Strange blessing on the nation lies
Whose sovereign wept,
Yea wept to wear its crown.

God bless thee, weeping Queen!
With blessing more divine,
And fill with-better-love, than earth's,
That tender heart of thine;
That when the thrones-of-earth shall be
As-low-as-graves brought down,

A pierced hand may give to-thee
The crown which angels wept to see.
Thou wilt not weep

To wear that heavenly crown.

Godiva.

Tennyson.

Nor only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in-the-flying-of-a-wheel
Cry-down the past-not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs,-have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl who ruled
In Coventry: for-when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought-

Their-children clamouring "If we pay, we starve
She sought her lord and found him where he strode
About-the-hall among-his-dogs alone,

His beard a-foot-before-him and his hair
A-yard-behind; she told-him of their tears,

And pray'd him "If they pay this tax, they starve."
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,

"You would not let your little finger ache

For such as these ?"--" But I would die" said she.
He laughed, and swore by Peter and by Paul:
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O, ay, ay, ay, you talk!"-" Alas!" she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do."
And, from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answered" Ride you naked through the town,
And I repeal it "; and, nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.

So left alone, the passions-of-her-mind,
As winds from-all-the-compass shift and blow,
Made war upon-each-other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people therefore, as they loved her well,
From-then till-noon no foot should pace the street-
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut and window barr'd.
Then fled-she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at-a-breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer-moon
Half-dipt in cloud! anon she shook her head

And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee
Unclad-herself in haste adown-the-stair
Stole on, and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From-pillar,-unto-pillar until she reach'd

:

The gateway there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.

Then she rode-forth clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breath'd for fear;
The little wide-mouth'd heads-upon-the-spout
Had cunning eyes to see the barking cur

Made her cheek flame - her palfrey's footfall shot
Like-horrors through her pulses the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes, and overhead
Fantastic gables crowding stared: but she
Not-less through-all bore-up till last she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from-the-field
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall.
Then she rode-back clothed on with chastity:-
And one low churl-compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,—
Boring a little auger-hole, in-fear

Peep'd-but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him so the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, pass'd ;-and all-at-once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers,

One after one; but even then she gain'd

Her bower, whence re-issuing robed and crown'd
To meet her lord, she took the tax away
And built-herself an everlasting name.