And upon their uppermost spray
Two white doves, delightsome and gay :

At dawn of morn they sweetly sung ;

And lightly toward heaven at noon they sprung.

R. C. Trench.

CXC.

ALMS WITHOUT CHARITY.

KNEW a soft-eyed Lady, from a noble foreign
Land:

Her voice, I thought, was lowest when we walked
out, hand in hand;

I began to say, Heaven pleasing, I shall have her for my

Bride:

Darkened, darkened, darkened, was the whole world when she died.

In the street a man since stopped me: in a noble foreign

tongue

He said he was a stranger, poor, and strangers all among : I offered all I had. He gazed; then took it, hand and all. O, how his look accused me, while he held my hand in thrall,

Pressing it with a gratitude which made my conscience

start;

For that was not my meaning; and his thanks rebuked

my heart.

CXCI.

C. Patmore.

WHERE LIES THE LAND.

HERE lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.

And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons, upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave ! The dripping sailor on the reeling mast

Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

A. H. Clough.

CXCII.

SIN.

ORD, with what care hast thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws; they send us bound

To rules of reason, holy messengers,

Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,

Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,

The sound of glory ringing in our ears; Without, our shame; within our consciences; Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.

Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

G. Herbert.

CXCIII.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

EE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stour1
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet
Wi' spreckled breast,

2

When upward springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble, birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,

Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield
High sheltering woods and wa's" maun shield,
But thou beneath the random bield"

O' clod or stane

Adorns the histie' stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

3 Spreckled, speckled.

2 Weet, wet.

6 Bield, shelter.

♦ Glinted, peeped, or rather glanced (glanced'st).

1 Stour, dust.

5 Wa's, walls.

7 Histie, dry and rugged.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soiled is laid
Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless-starred !
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er !

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with woes and wants has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till, wrenched of every stay but heaven,
He, ruined, sink!

Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date,
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,

Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom!

R. Burns.

First

Witch.

CXCIV.

MACBETH.

ACT I. SCENE III.-A heath near Forres.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

HERE hast thou been, sister?
Sec. Witch. Killing swine.

Third Witch. Sister, where thou?

First Witch. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And munched, and munched, and munched :-'Give me,'

quoth I:

‘Aroint * thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon† cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger :

But in a sieve I'll thither sail,

And, like a rat without a tail,

I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

Sec. Witch. I'll give thee a wind.

First Witch. I myself have all the other,

And the very ports they blow,

All the quarters that they know

I' the shipman's card.

I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid :
Weary se'nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.

Sec. Witch. Show me, show me.

* Aroint, get thee gone.

Ronyon, a term of contempt for a woman.

Y