English

" One thing is not fit for all;
What he does, let each take care:
Where he stays, let each beware:
He that stands, expect to fall. "
Gaethe .

The Quarrelsome Man.

Silent through the street I fare
Where resides my fair-haired she;
Others to this street repair;
Through the gloom I seem to see
Some one pause and enter there.
Doth it straightway stir my gall

" Moon-illumined magic-night
Such as can the sense ensnare,
World of legends strange and rare,
Rise, in olden splendour dight! "
Tieck

Troubadour

Dark's the night — no moon's soft ray —
Nowhere gleams one starry spark;
Yet, impelled by love's fond sway,
Roam I through th' uncertain dark,
With my lute and plaintive lay.
When my love from slumbers light

The three poems following are mere specimens of literary skill. A verse of four lines from some well-known author is selected; it is then required to write a poem of four verses, each verse to end with one of the lines aforesaid. These ending lines are italicized, and will be found to correspond with the lines of the quatrain.

Act I A fishing and pilot village on a great estuary. Low cottages on either side of bare ground sloping down to the river. The background is grey water and grey sky, and a low coast on the extreme of sight. On a rough bench beside the open door of one cottage sits moodily Saul, a pilot (L.). A group of men and women (R.) gazing earnestly up the river, among them Deborah, a girl in the early twenties, old Martin, and a woman, thought half-witted by the village (First Woman) .

1ST WOMAN . There is no help for us; we are left alone,

I do not grope in mystic dusks
For glimmers of a great Design
That casts to epicures dry husks
And pearls to swine —

That cheats the strong, the daring still,
And mocks them with the bitter need —
The spark to forge the iron Will
Into the deed.

Yet grants what precious talents are
To stragglers on the phantom ways
To spend at Dream's grotesque bazaar
For painted days.

I do not ask some bolt of Thought
To open wide the veiling sky
And show the purpose subtly wrought

Roses.

Oft in the olden days she gave me sweet-smelling roses;
One hath but lately bloomed o'er the beloved one's grave.

Interpretation of Dreams.

Yesterday I in a dream saw her whom I love at the window;
What saw I when awake? only the flowers she gave.
But in my dreaming to-day, bright flow'rs I saw by the window;
Surely to-day will ere long shew me the darling herself!

Love's Arrow.

Love! thine arrow of might my heart hath mortally stricken;
Now in Elysian realms wake I, already in bliss!

Exchange.

Keenly the swift breeze blew, and the flow'rs were scattered in fragments,
But on the low-bent stalk rested a butterfly still!

May.

Blossoms and buds how bright! leaves circle the trees like a " glory " ;
Heav'n, o'erclouded remain! Earth hath a gleam of her own.