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but fear

having certain proverbs thrown in All these the courtier would have asked, our teeth about enough being as good as a feast.

"The royal sage-the Master of the Ring,
Solomon-once upon a morn in spring,
By Kedron, in his garden's rosiest walk,
Was loitering, with a pleasant guest in
talk.

A man of awful presence, but with face
Yet undiscerned, was seen within the
place.

The stranger seemed, to judge him by his
dress,

One of mean sort, a dweller with distress,
Or some poor pilgrim;-but the steps
he took

Bespoke an inward greatness, and his
look

Opened a page in a tremendous book.
How he got there-what wanted-who
could be-

That ventured thus to beard such privacy;
Whether some mighty Spirit of the Ring,
And, if so, why he thus should daunt the
King?

Palsied his utterance as the man drew

near.

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THE MEETING.

BITTER was the tale I dreaded,
Grief of heart for evermore,
When, from years of weary travel,
Landing on my native shore,
I sought out the ancient village
And the well-remembered door.

Long it was since any tidings

Reached me wandering o'er the wave,
And my soul for certain knowledge,
Though it held a curse,

did crave

Though the melancholy answer
Only echoed of the grave.

I had left three little children
In the years of long ago-
But past joy is present sorrow;
Painfully the seasons flow-
Who am I to be delivered

From the broken hopes below?

I had left an angel woman
Guardian of the tender three-
Is she dead or is she living?
Is her spirit true to me?
Well I know that many winters
Cannot change her constancy.

And I sought the well-loved cottage,
Skirted by the poplar tall;
Waited by the garden-wicket,
Listening to the waterfall;
And I caught the pleasant odour
Of the jasmine on the wall.

Then I entered, and she knew me,
And sank fainting in my arms.
On her face I saw imprinted

Midnight watchings, pain, alarms.
And her children clustered round me,
Undivided, free from harms.

P. S. WORSLEY.

PROGRESS.

THE broad advances of material power,
The onward sweep of intellectual good,
And nations moving into manhood new
Through wisdom and authentic civil change-
O soul-expansive creed! O faith to stir
The individual breast with hopes divine,
And breathe forgetfulness of private wrong!
But when I asked myself what these have done,
What failed to do, I felt as if an air,

Steady and chill, from some waste wilderness,
Swept cold across the chambers of my heart;
For through the heavy multitudinous roll,
Heard underneath the noises of the hour
From Life's dark hollows, as I thought, a cry
Unheeded, inarticulate, went up,

Which forcibly found words within my breast :

Still we suffer wrongs untold,

Robbed of peace and joy and health,
Slowly slain, both young and old,

For the rich man's greed of wealth.
How long shall our hearths lie cold?
How long shall our lives be sold?
Rise, ye men of nobler mould,

Say it shall not be for ever!

Vainly doth the poor man groan,
Vainly doth he speak his grief.
"Work on, till thy days be flown
Seek not, save in death, relief!
It is thus they mock his moan,
While they take from him his own,
Leaving him the grave alone,

Where to sleep at rest for ever!

Shall there not deep vengeance fall
On the tyrants pitiless,
Holding cursed festival

In a people's heaviness?
Vengeance late or soon will fall
On the oppressors one and all,
Covering, like a funeral pall,

These iniquities for ever!

O would that all men who have eyes to see,
Who feel the earthquake heaving in its chains,
Would lay to heart the remedy of things
Disjointed, ere they perish, and would turn

Where lies the one hope of the groaning earth!
Nor will I doubt my country shall find help-
Not in the selfishness of social war,
State agitations, and the building up
A Babel of unripe democracies;
But in the charity of man to man;
In the acknowledgment of common blood
Drawn from a common Father; in the sense
Of Christ's desert wherein we all are rich,
And of our own wherein we all are poor.
This is that touch of nature which will make
The whole world kin, and bring "the golden year."
And God be thanked that many to this end
Are working, by the unfaithful and inert
Derided, not defeated, and, though faint,
Pursuing; the laborious pioneers

Who point the scope of elemental Right;

Who make the rough ways smooth, the crooked straight;
Who lift the valleys even with the hills,

And on a secret anvil, hour by hour,
Unforge the fetters of Humanity!

STRENGTH.

IN strength there ever dwells of right
Some quality of noble name,
Which through base uses keeps alight
A remnant of celestial flame,
And cannot leave him wholly vile
Within whose breast it takes abode,
Since this one spot, this little isle,
Must still retain the stamp of God.
In Him who, not of kings the heir,

Carves out a crown by kingly work,
Must needs be that some virtue rare,
Some godlike moral grace, doth lurk.
This, shining forth, shall colour lend

To wrong, or questionable act,
Till the world dreams a righteous end
Where only sophists can defend,

And Faith becomes the slave of Fact.

Yet is it an effeminate thing,

A woman-weakness, still to crave For works that make the world to ring, Or setting up some idol-king

For violence pronounce him brave.
For stronger far, and in their strength
More honourably due to fame,

Are they who through the stormy length
Of combat kept a flawless name;

Who, reddened to the brows with strife,

P. S. WORSLEY.

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Who sheathed the sword when peace might be,
And, bravely glad, confessed it gain;
In whose severe sublimity

Envy detects no fatal stain;

Men of a perfect mould; and such,

Who knew themselves and knew their time,

We cannot honour over-much

In story or in rhyme.

Strong is the statesman who can wield
A nation to his single will,

Teach its blind passions how to yield,
And lordly destinies fulfil;
Who to one point, whate'er befall,
Makes every shapely purpose bend,
Becoming all things unto all,
So he may gain an end.

Yet greater oft is ill success-
Later in time they reap applause
Whom factions could not ban nor bless;
Found brave enough to lose a cause;
Who, 'mid a grovelling race and prone,
Walked honestly erect and proud,
Who dared not lie to gain a throne,
Nor struck their colours to the crowd.
Such shall not lack renown till when
Cometh an iron age at last,

Sneering at all that makes us men,

Cursed with contemnings of the Past;
Who, reaping where they have not sown,
Wax selfish in their base degree;

Who think the breath they breathe their own,
And slur the light by which they see.

This is the noblest strength to seek,

And fadeless still the crown remains, Which once He wore who, strongly weak, On Calvary was wrung with pains.

To suffer, and without complaint,

Makes grandeur more divine than all ;
This to high places lifts the faint;
This is the hero's coronal.

To wither in a dark disgrace

Which half a word might wipe away,
And clothed with calumny to face
Contempt and hatred day by day,

Because the half-word that would change
Our destiny were best unsaid-

O wide and elevated range

Of hearts to worthy interests wed!
So blest the fame-regardless thought,
Which, to divine attractions true,
Feels that the life which hath been taught
To suffer hath been taught to do!

P. S. WORSLEY.

NORMAN SINCLAIR.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

PART IX.

CHAPTER XXIX.-A MYSTERIOUS ADVERTISEMENT.

"MY DEAR LAD"- thus wrote Mr Shearaway-" I was truly glad to receive tidings of you, and more especially from your own hand. For though you have been long away from us, you are by no means forgotten, at least by me; and I have often caught myself wondering, when I ought to have been doing something else (possibly attending to a sermon), what on earth had become of Norman Sinclair, the steadiest lad I ever had in hand, but also the queerest in so far as regarded his notions for the future. For a time I heard something about you from your old guardian, Ned Mather; but he became tired of Edinburgh, where his acquaintances were gradually dying out, and about three years ago settled down in some remote part of Galloway, where good fishing is to be had, since when he has given no token of existence. I always thought that you would make a spoon or spoil a horn (which, by the way, is but a stupid proverb, because if you don't make a spoon, the horn of course must be spoiled); but you know very well what I mean; and I really am delighted to hear that you have got on so well, and prophesy even better things for the time to come.

"With regard to that poor demented creature, Jamie Littlewoo, it will be my duty to tell his father what you have communicated, and to concert measures for saving the idiot from absolute ruin. I am the more bound to do this, because it was partly through my advice that he was sent to London, for giving which I am now like to eat my fingers from vexation. But I did it all for the best. We could make nothing of him here. He could neither settle down in the office, nor study for the bar, but took up with idle officers and dissipated ne'erdoweels, of whom it can hardly be said that they were fruges

consumere nati, seeing that, for the most part, they subsisted entirely upon drink. What could we do with a lad who would neither read nor work, and never came home to his bed until three o'clock in the morning? I thought the best thing was to send him away from such graceless company, and to get him a situation where, at all events, he would be compelled to attend for certain hours; but it would seem from your account that he has louped from the fryingpan into the fire, and got into the hands of the Jews, for whose conversion I would sincerely pray, and even cheerfully subscribe, if I thought that on becoming Christians they would cease to be discounters of bills. Mr Littlewoo must just make up his mind to advance whatever is necessary to clear his gowk of a son. His case is a hard one, for I don't think he has saved much, having an expensive family. What with dinners and balls and pic-nics (in spite of which none of the Misses have got married), they must have muddled away an awful deal of money. I know I should not like to have to pay the haberdasher's account for the last twelvemonth.

"It will not be necessary that I should write to James Littlewoo immediately, as I expect to be in London in the course of a fortnight, when I shall ascertain the amount of his liabilities, and consider how they may be discharged. I should not have thought of coming to London at this season of the year, but, like every one else, I have got mixed up in railway matters, and have to look after the interests of some clients, in a bill which is now depending in Parliament. This railway mania is the most extraordinary movement that I can recollect. It has taken possession of well-nigh everybody in Edinburgh. Advocates, writers, doctors, citizens,

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