age, he was apprenticed to a silk-mercer in London. Disliking the drudgery of a retail shop, he obtained the cancelling of his indentures, and devoted himself to literature. In 1708 he published a poem, in blank verse, called "Wine;" and in 1711 "Rural Sports," a descriptive poem, which he dedicated to Pope, through life his admirer and friend, and became domestic-secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth. In 1714 he published his "Shepherd's Week," a pastoral, and obtained the post of secretary to Lord Clarendon on his appointment of Envoy-Extraordinary to Hanover; but Gay was totally unfitted for public employment, and held the situation for two months only. On his return, he produced several dramatic pieces, with but slight success; but in 1727 his "Beggars' Opera" came out, ran for sixty-two successive nights, and not only became the rage at the time, but has remained ever since one of the most popular pieces ever produced on the British stage. He soon amassed 30007. by his writings. This he determined to keep "entire and sacred," being at the same time received into the house of his early patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. Here he amused himself by adding to his "Fables." He died, suddenly, of fever, December 4, 1732, aged 44, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.]

I HATE the man who builds his name
On ruins of another's fame;
Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown,
Imagine that they raise their own;
Thus scribblers, covetous of praise,
Think slander can transplant the bays.
Beauties and bards have equal pride,
With both all rivals are decried:
Who praises Lesbia's eyes and feature,
Must call her sister "awkward creature;"
For the kind flattery's sure to charm,
When we some other nymph disarm.
As in the cool of early day,

A poet sought the sweets of May,
The garden's fragrant breath ascends,
And every stalk with odour bends,
A rose he pluck'd, he gazed, admired,
Thus singing as the muse inspired:
"Go, rose, my Chloe's bosom grace!
How happy should I prove,
Might I supply that envied place
With never-fading love!

There, phoenix-like, beneath her eye,

Involved in fragrance, burn and die!

Know, hapless flower, that thou shalt find

More fragrant roses there,

I see thy withering head reclined

With envy and despair:

One common fate we both must prove,

You die with envy, I with love."

66

Spare your comparisons," replied

An angry rose, who grew beside.

66

Of all mankind you should not flout us;

What can a poet do without us?

In every love-song roses bloom;
We lend you colour and perfume.
Does it to Chloe's charms conduce
To found her praise on our abuse?
Must we, to flatter her, be made
To wither, envy, pine, and fade ?"

67.-THE MOURNING MOTHER OF THE DEAD BLIND. MRS. E. B. BROWNING.

[See page 142.]

I.

DOST thou weep, mourning mother,
For thy blind boy in the grave?
That no more with each other
Purest counsel ye can have?
That he, left dark by nature,
Can never more be led
By thee, maternal creature,

Along smooth paths instead?
That thou can'st no more show him

The sunshine, by the heat;

The river's silver flowing,
By murmurs at his feet?
The foliage, by its coolness;
The roses, by their smell;
And all creation's fulness,
By Love's invisible?
Weepest thou to behold not

His meek blind eyes again—
Closed doorways which were folded,
And prayed against in vain-
And under which sate smiling
The child-mouth evermore,
As one who watcheth, wiling
The time by, at a door?
And weepest thou to feel not
His clinging hand on thine—
Which, now at dream-time, will not
Its cold hands disentwine?
And weepest thou still ofter,
Oh, never more to mark
His low, soft words, made softer
By speaking in the dark ?
Weep on, thou mourning mother!

II.

But since to him when living,

Thou wert both sun and moon,

Look o'er his grave, surviving,
From a high sphere alone!
Sustain that exaltation-
Expend the tender light,
And hold in mother-passion,
Thy Blessed, in thy sight.
See how he went out straightway
From the dark world he knew;
No twilight in the gateway

To mediate 'twixt the two;
Into the sudden glory,

Out of the dark he trod,
Departing from before thee

At once to light and GOD!
For the first face, beholding
The Christ's in its divine;
For the first place, the golden
And tideless hyaline:
With trees, at lasting summer,
That rock to tuneful sound,
While angels, the new comer,
Wrap a still smile around.
Oh, in the blessed psalm, now,
His happy voice he tries,
Spreading a thicker palm-bough,
Than others, o'er his eyes;
Yet still, in all his singing,
Thinks highly of thy song
Which, in his life's first springing,
Sang to him all night long,
And wishes it beside him,
With kissing lips that cool
And soft did overglide him,
To make the sweetness full.
Look up, O mourning mother,
Thy blind boy walks in light!
Ye wait for one another,

Before God's infinite!

But thou art now the darkest,
Thou mother left below-
Thou, the sole blind-thou markest,
Content that it be so,-

Until ye two give meeting
Where heaven's pearl-gate is,
And he shall lead thy feet in,
As once thou leddest his!

Wait on, thou mourning mother!

(By permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall.)

R

68. THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER.

[Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander is well known as the authoress of some of the most beautiful sacred songs in the language. She is the wife of a learned divine, resident at Strabane.]

'BY Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab
There lies a lonely grave,
And no man knows that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth:
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth-
Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes back when night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;
So without sound of music,

Or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown,
The great procession swept.

Perchance the bald old eagle,
On grey Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his lonely eyrie,

Look'd on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion stalking

Still shuns that hallow'd spot,

For beast and bird have seen and heard

That which man knoweth not.

But when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled drum,
Follow his funeral car;

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute gun.

Amid the noblest of the land
We lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honour'd place,
With costly marble drest,

In the great minster transept

Where lights like glories fall,

And the organ rings, and the sweet choir sings Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword,

This the most gifted poet

That ever breath'd a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honour,-
The hill-side for a pall,

To lie in state while angels wait

With stars for tapers tall,

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave,

And God's own hand in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave?

In that strange grave without a name,
Whence his uncoffin'd clay

Shall break again, O wondrous thought!
Before the Judgment day,

And stand with glory wrapt around
On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life,
With the Incarnate Son of God.

O lonely grave in Moab's land!

O dark Beth-Peor's hill!

Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.

God hath His mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him He loved so well.