Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar, and Pine, and Fir, and branching Palm,
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung:
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once a golden hue
Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixt:

On which the sun more glad impressed his beams

Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed That landscape. And of pure now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair; now gentle gales
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambique, off at sea North-east winds blow
Sabæan odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest, with such delay
Well pleased their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.

* Satan's.

MILTON.

Mariana.

Mariana in the moated grange."-MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

I.

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden-wall.
The broken sheds looked sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch

Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "My life is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead."

II.

Her tears fell with the dews at even;

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide.

After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,

And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

III.

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow; The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "The day is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

IV.

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blackened waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small,

The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, “My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

V.

And ever when the moon was low,
and away,

And the shrill winds were up
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,

And wild winds bound within their cell,

The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.

She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

VI.

All day within the dreamy house,

The doors upon their hinges creaked; The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about.

Old faces glimmered through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

VII.

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,

The slow clock ticking, and the sound

Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound

Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then, said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!"

Sonnet.

TENNYSON.

O TIME! who knowest a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On Thee I rest my only hope at last,

And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile—

I

As some lone bird, at day's departing hour,

Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while :-
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

W. L. BOWLES.