The poets-the poets—
Who doth not linger o'er
The glorious volumes that contain
Their bright and spotless lore?
They charm us in the saddest hours,
Our richest joys they feed;
And love for them has grown to be
A universal creed.

Well

The poets-the poets-
Those kingly minstrels dead,

may we twine a votive wreath
Around each honoured head:

No tribute is too high to give

Those crowned ones among men.

The poets-the true poets—

Thanks be to GOD for them!

Rev. William Croswell, D. D.

THE

CLOUDS.

"Cloud land! gorgeous land!"—Coleridge.

I

CANNOT look above and see

Yon high-piled, pillowy mass

Of evening clouds, so swimmingly
In gold and purple pass,

And think not, LORD, how thou wast seen

On Israel's desert way,

Before them, in thy shadowy screen,
Pavilioned all the day!

Or, of those robes of gorgeous hue
Which the Redeemer wore,

When, ravished from his followers' view,

Aloft his flight He bore, When lifted, as on mighty wing,

He curtained his ascent,

And, wrapped in clouds, went triumphing

Above the firmament.

Is it a trail of that same pall
Of many-coloured dyes,

That high above, o'ermantling all,
Hangs midway down the skies-
Or borders of those sweeping folds
Which shall be all unfurled
About the Saviour, when He holds
His judgment on the world?

For in like manner as He went,—
My soul, hast thou forgot?—
Shall be his terrible descent,

When man expecteth not!

Strength, Son of Man, against that hour,

Be to our spirits given,

When Thou shalt come again with power, Upon the clouds of heaven!

William Pitt Palmer.

LINES то A CHRYSALIS.

MUSING long, I asked me this :

"Chrysalis,

Lying helpless in my path,

Obvious to mortal scath

From a careless passer-by,

What thy life may signify?

Why, from hope and joy apart,
Thus thou art?

"Nature surely did amiss,

Chrysalis,

When she lavished fins and wings,
Nerved with nicest moving-springs,
On the mote and madrepore,
Wherewithal to swim or soar;
And dispensed so niggardly
Unto thee.

"E'en the very worm may kiss,
Chrysalis,

Roses on their topmost stems,
Blazoned with their dewy gems,
And may rock him to and fro
As the zephyrs softly blow;
Whilst thou liest, dark and cold,
On the mould."

Quoth the Chrysalis: "Sir Bard,

Not so hard

Is my rounded destiny

In the great Economy.

Nay, by humble reason viewed,
There is much for gratitude

In the shaping and upshot
Of my lot.

"Though I seem of all things born Most forlorn,

Most obtuse of soul and sense,

Next of kin to Impotence,

Nay, to Death himself; yet ne'er

Priest or prophet, sage or seer,

May sublimer wisdom teach
Than I preach.

"From my pulpit of the sod,
Like a god,

I proclaim this wondrous truth:

Farthest age is nearest youth,
Nearest Glory's natal porch,

Where, with pale, inverted torch,

Death lights downward to the rest Of the blest.

'Mark yon airy butterfly's

Rainbow-dyes!

Yesterday that shape divine

Was as darkly hearsed as mine;

But to-morrow I shall be

Free and beautiful as she,

And sweep forth on wings of light,

Like a sprite.

"Soul of man in crypt of clay!
Bide the day

When thy latent wings shail be
Plumed for immortality,

And with transport marvellous
Cleave their dark sarcophagus,

O'er Elysian fields to soar
Evermore!"

Mary Noel Meigs.

THE SPELLS OF

MEMORY.

T was but the note of a summer bird,

IT.

But a dream of the past in my heart it stirred,

And wafted me far to a breezy spot,

Where blossomed the blue forget-me-not.

And the broad, green boughs gave a checkered gleam

To the dancing waves of a mountain-stream;

And there, in the heat of a summer day,

Again on the velvet turf I lay,

And saw bright shapes in the floating clouds,

And reared fair domes mid their fleecy shrouds,

As I looked aloft to the azure sky,

And longed for a bird's soft plumes to fly,

Till lost in its depths of purity.

Alas! I have waked from that early dream :

Far, far away is the mountain-stream;

And the dewy turf, where so oft I lay,

And the woodland flowers, they are far away;