His Lady queen of woods to meet,He wanders day and night:The leaves have whisperings discreet,The mossy ways invite. Across a lustrous ring of space,By covert hoods and caves,Is promise of her secret faceIn film that onward waves. For darkness is the light astrain,Astrain for light the dark.A grey moth down a larches’ laneUnwinds a ghostly […]

That was the chirp of ArielYou heard, as overhead it flew,The farther going more to dwell,And wing our green to wed our blue;But whether note of joy or knell,Not his own Father-singer knew;Nor yet can any mortal tell,Save only how it shivers through;The breast of us a sounded shell,The blood of us a lighted dew.

Not ere the bitter herb we taste,Which ages thought of happy times,To plant us in a weeping waste,Rings with our fellows this one heartAccordant chimes. When I had shed my glad year’s leaf,I did believe I stood alone,Till that great company of GriefTaught me to know this craving heartFor not my own.

Joy is fleet,Sorrow slow.Love, so sweet,Sorrow will sow.Love, that has flownEre day’s decline,Love to have known,Sorrow, be mine!

I O briar-scents, on yon wet wingOf warm South-west wind brushing by,You mind me of the sweetest thingThat ever mingled frank and shy:When she and I, by love enticed,Beneath the orchard-apples met,In equal halves a ripe one sliced,And smelt the juices ere we ate. II That apple of the briar-scent,Among our lost in Britain now,Was […]

I A satyr spied a Goddess in her bath,Unseen of her attendant nymphs; none knew.Forthwith the creature to his fellows drew,And looking backward on the curtained path,He strove to tell; he could but heave a breastToo full, and point to mouth, with failing leers:Vainly he danced for speech, he giggled tears,Made as if torn in […]

With splendour of a silver day,A frosted night had opened May:And on that plumed and armoured night,As one close temple hove our wood,Its border leafage virgin white.Remote down air an owl hallooed.The black twig dropped without a twirl;The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped;The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl;A crystal off the green leaf […]

I Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone,The look of her heart slipped out and in.Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone,As innocents clear of a shade of sin. II He laid a finger under her chin,His arm for her girdle at waist was thrown:Now, what will happen and who will win,With […]

Days, when the ball of our visionHad eagles that flew unabashed to sun;When the grasp on the bow was decision,And arrow and hand and eye were one;When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer,Came heaving for rapture ahead! –Invoke them, they dwindle, they glimmerAs lights over mounds of the dead. Behold the winged Olympus, off […]

‘Fair Chloe, we toasted of old,As the Queen of our festival meeting;Now Chloe is lifeless and cold;You must go to the grave for her greeting.Her beauty and talents were framedTo enkindle the proudest to win her;Then let not the mem’ry be blamedOf the purest that e’er was a sinner!’ Captain Chanter’s Collection. CHAPTER I A […]

CHAPTER I An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since his retirement from active service, led General Ople across a famous common, with which he fell in love at once, to a lofty highway along the borders of a park, for […]

CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY LETTERS WRITTEN TO THE MORNING POST FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT FERRARA, June 22, 1866. Before this letter reaches London the guns will have awakened both the echo of the old river Po and the classical Mincio. The whole of the […]

When that noble body of scholarly and cheerful pedestrians, the Sunday Tramps, were on the march, with Leslie Stephen to lead them, there was conversation which would have made the presence of a shorthand writer a benefaction to the country. A pause to it came at the examination of the leader’s watch and Ordnance map […]

Things are quiet outside an ant-hill until the stick has been thrust into it. Mr. Gladstone’s Bill for helping to the wiser government of Ireland has brought forth our busy citizens on the top-rubble in traversing counterswarms, and whatever may be said against a Bill that deals roughly with many sensitive interests, one asks whether […]

Our ‘Eriniad,’ or ballad epic of the enfranchisement of the sister island is closing its first fytte for the singer, and with such result as those Englishmen who have some knowledge of their fellows foresaw. There are sufficient reasons why the Tories should always be able to keep together, but let them have the credit […]

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was born at Calcutta, July 18, 1811, the only child of Richmond and Anne Thackeray. He received the main part of his education at the Charterhouse, as we know to our profit. Thence he passed to Cambridge, remaining there from February 1829 to sometime in 1830. To judge by quotations and allusions, […]

I He leaped. With none to hinder, Of Aetna’s fiery scoriae In the next vomit-shower, made he A more peculiar cinder. And this great Doctor, can it be, He left no saner recipe For men at issue with despair? Admiring, even his poet owns, While noting his fine lyric tones, The last of him was […]

I The day that is the night of days, With cannon-fire for sun ablaze We spy from any billow’s lift; And England still this tidal drift! Would she to sainted forethought vow A space before the thunders flood, That martyr of its hour might now Spare her the tears of blood. II Asleep upon her […]

Now the North wind ceases, The warm South-west awakes; Swift fly the fleeces, Thick the blossom-flakes. Now hill to hill has made the stride, And distance waves the without end: Now in the breast a door flings wide; Our farthest smiles, our next is friend. And song of England’s rush of flowers Is this full […]

For a Heracles in his fighting ire there is never the glory that follows When ashen he lies and the poets arise to sing of the work he has done. But to vision alive under shallows of sight, lo, the Labourer’s crown is Apollo’s, While stands he yet in his grime and sweat–to wrestle for […]