Declare a life whose course hath been

Unsullied still, though still severe,

Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look
When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,
With no companion save his book,
To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
Where as the Benedictine laid
His palm upon the pilgrim guest,
The single boon for which he prayed
The convent's charity was rest.

Peace dwells not here-this rugged face

Betrays no spirit of repose;

The sullen warrior sole we trace,

The marble man of many woes.

Such was his mien when first arose

The thought of that strange tale divineWhen hell he peopled with his foes,

The scourge of many a guilty line.

War to the last he waged with all
The tyrant canker-worms of earth;
Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
Cursed the dark hour that give him birth;
He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of kingly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou ;
That poor, old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now:
Before his name the nations bow;
His words are parcel of mankind,
Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.

THOMAS W. PARSONS.

DECEMBER.

ICE everywhere! The skater's iron heel

Scars the gleb plain with many a curious score, Which to essay, with quips untried before, Brings the crank urchin sudden woes to feel! Down ring the daggered icicles like steel,

As the chill chore-boy opes the stable door, While Dobbin whinnies for his morning meal.

Frost lords it o'er the scene and more and more, Grimly prevails. The landscape glints with iceWhere woodland streams from the hoar precipice Leap and congeal; or where, a silver threadThe joyless brook pines in its frozen bed;

Or where by drifted roads the sign board stands,

Stretching toward the sun its ice-mailed

hands!

H. S. CORNWELL.

JANUARY.

NOT yet will Cold, the tyrant, abdicate
His icy throne, but, ruthless and austere,
Sways his sad scepter o'er the frozen year,
Triumphant, and exults in barren state.
Dispirited and all exanimate

The ravaged woods and silent fields appear,
Save where, by stubbed uplands, bleak and sere,
The starving crow calls harshly to his mate.
Yet faithful Nature's secret even now

Stirs in her bosom. From the hollow bough Chatters the squirrel, certain that at length

The hickory groves to newer gloss shall grow For yet the grass is green beneath the snow, And the glad sun rejoices in his strength!

FEBRUARY.

H. S. CORNWELL.

THE last of Winter's melancholy train
Of shivering effigies, abject and bent,

Like some hard prince, scourged to his banish

ment,

Gray February gropes across the plain.

Pinched is his figure, yet the frozen rain

Gems his blown robes with rough embellish

ment,

Concealing so, full many a piteous rent,

By rude winds made, that urge him on amain.

So, fierce and blustering tyrant, vanisheth Thy kingdom like a dream! No requiem, Breeze-borne, for thee, laments along the land, For lo, behind thee, one whose gentler breath Fast thaws thy diamond-frosted diadem— Trips radiant, with a crocus in her hand!

H. S. CORNWELL.

MAY.

COME walk with me along this willowed lane, Where, like lost coinage from some miser's

store,

The golden dandelions more and more Glow, as the warm sun kisses them again! For this is May! who with a daisy chain

Leads on the laughing Hours; for now is o'er Long winter's trance. No longer rise and roar His forest-wrenching blasts. The hopeful swain, Along the furrow, sings behind his team;

Loud pipes the redbreast-troubadour of spring, And vocal all the morning copses ring;

More blue the skies in lucent lakelets gleam; And the glad earth, caressed by murmuring showers,

Wakes like a bride, to deck herself with flowers!

H. S. CORNwell.

A SONG FOR SEPTEMBER.

SEPTEMBER strews the woodland o'er
With many a brilliant color;
The world is brighter than before,—
Why should our hearts be duller?
Sorrow and the scarlet leaf,

Sad thoughts and sunny weather! Ah me! this glory and this grief Agree not well together.

This is the parting season,-this
The time when friends are flying;
And lovers now, with many a kiss,
Their long farewells are sighing.
Why is Earth so gayly dressed?

This pomp, that Autumn beareth, A funeral seems where every guest A bridal garment weareth.

Each one of us, perchance, may here, On some blue morn hereafter, Return to view the gaudy year,

But not with boyish laughter. We shall then be wrinkled men, Our brows with silver laden, And thou this glen may'st seek again, But nevermore a maiden !

Nature perhaps foresees that Spring Will touch her teeming bosom,