ALEXANDER SMITH.

I.

SOLITARY AT CHRISTMAS, BUT NOT SAD.

Joy like a stream flows through the Christmas streets, But I am sitting in my silent room,

Sitting all silent in congenial gloom ;

To-night, while half the world the other greets

With smiles and grasping hands, and drinks and meats,

I sit, and muse on my poetic doom.

Like the dim scent within a budded rose,

A joy is folded in my heart; and when

I think on Poets nurtured 'mong the throes,

And by the lowly hearths of common men,

Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode
With gorgeous music growing to a close,
Deep-muffled as the dead-march of a god, -

My heart is burning to be one of those.

and bustling age, for a reckless utilitarian people. The feelings of love, pity, and grief this little book is calculated to awaken will exert a salutary influence, softening the heart, and nourishing human sympathy and poetic sentiment."

II.

THE CHRISTMAS SOLITUDE VARIED WITH THE CHRISTMAS STREETS.

SHEATHED is the river as it glideth by,

Frost-pearled are all the boughs in forest old,
The sheep are huddling close upon the wold,
And over them the stars tremble on high.
Pure joys these winter-nights around me lie;
"T is fine to loiter through the lighted streets
At Christmas time, and guess from brow and pace
The doom and history of each one we meet,
What kind of heart beats in each dusky case;
Whiles startled by the beauty of a face

In a shop-light a moment. Or, instead,
To dream of silent fields, where calm and deep
The sunshine lieth like a golden sleep,-
Recalling sweetest looks of summers dead.

III.

PROPHETICAL SELF-REFLECTED WORDS.

I WROTE a name upon the river sands
With her who bore it standing by my side,
Her large dark eyes lit up with gentle pride,
And leaning on my arm with clasped hands;
To burning words of mine she thus replied,
"Nay, write not on thy heart.

This tablet frail
Fitteth as frail a vow. Fantastic bands

Will scarce confine these limbs." I turned love-pale,

I gazed upon the rivered landscape wide,

And thought how little it would all avail

Without her love. 'T was on a morn of May,

Within a month I stood upon the sand;

Gone was the name I traced with trembling hand, And from my heart 't was also gone away.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.*

I.

ONE'S OWN MOOD REFLECTED IN A DAY-DREAM.

("On the Sunny Shore.")

CHECKERED with woven shadows as I lay

Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,
I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay

Most idly floating in the noontide beam.
Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway
Of ocean's giant pulsing ; and the Dream,
Buoyed like the young moon on a level stream
Of greenish vapor at decline of day,

Swam airily, watching the distant flocks

Of sea-gulls, whilst a foot, in careless sweep,
Touched the clear-trembling cool with tiny shocks
Faint-circling; till at last he dropped asleep,

Lulled by the hush-song of the glittering deep,
Lap-lapping drowsily the heated rocks.

*“The Music-Master, a Love Story; and Two Series of Day and Night Songs. 1855."

II.

AUTUMNAL TWILIGHT, WITH FRIENDS.

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,
And night by night the monitory blast
Wails in the keyhole, telling how it passed

O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,

Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods
Than any joy indulgent Summer dealt.
Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve,
Pensive and glad, with tones that recognize
The soft invisible dew on each one's eyes,
It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave
To walk with memory, when distant lies

Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve.