smile, after the loss of his son Prince William, who was drowned in a shipwreck off the coast of Normandy, on his voyage from France to England.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

[ELIZABETH BARRETT, born 1809, is the greatest poetess England has yet produced. She is the author of "Aurora Leigh," and "Casa Guidi Windows." In 1846, she married Robert Browning, one of the greatest poets of this century. She died 29th June, 1861.]

1. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,

And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west-
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!—

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

2. Do you question the young children in the sorrow, Why their tears are falling so?—

The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago—

The old tree is leafless in the forest

The old year is ending in the frost

The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest—
The old hope is hardest to be lost:

But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

3. They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy—

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"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;" "Our young feet," they say, are very weak! Few paces have we taken, yet are wearyOur grave-rest is very far to seek.

Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold,

And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,

And the graves are for the old.

4. "True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time.

Little Alice died last year-the grave is shapen
Like a snowball in the rime.

We looked into the pit prepared to take her
Was no room for any work in the close clay :
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake
her,

Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries !-
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know
her,

For the smile has time for growing in her eyes!
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud, by the kirk-chime !

It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time."

5. Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have!

They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.

Go out, children, from the mine and from the city---
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do—

Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips prettyLaugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!

But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?

Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!

6. "For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap—

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping-
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring

Through the coal-dark underground-
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.

7. And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run;

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun :

They know the grief of man, without his wisdom; They sink in man's despair, without his calm— Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,— Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly

The blessing of its memory cannot keep,Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly: Let them weep! let them weep!

8. They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in their places,
With eyes turned on Deity;—

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,

Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,

And your purple shows your path !

But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath!"
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

THE HERMIT.

[JAMES BEATTIE, born 25th October, 1735, became Professor of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen in 1760, published "Essay on Truth," 1770. "The Minstrel," his best known work, in 1771-74. He died 18th August, 1803.]

1. At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove; When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill, And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove;

'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,

While his harp rang symphonious, a hermit began ;

No more with himself, or with nature, at war,

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

2. "Ah! why thus abandon'd to darkness and woe?
Why, lone philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthrall.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay;

Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to

mourn.

O, soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away:

Full quickly they pass-but they never return.

3. "Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky, The moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays; But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high

She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.

Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendour again : But man's faded glory what change shall renew? Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

4. ""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; I mourn; but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;

For morn is approaching, your gems to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with

dew;

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;

Kind nature the embryo blossom will save; But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? O, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave?

5. ""Twas thus, by the light of false science betray'd, That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind, My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

'O, pity, great Father of light,' then I cried,

Thy creature, that fain would not wander from
Thee:

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst
free?'

6. "And darkness and doubt are now flying away;
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn :
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.