Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ;

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Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:

And so make Life, Death, and that vast For-Ever

One grand sweet song.

JOHN RUSKIN. 1819-1900

THE MADONNA DELL'ACQUA

Around her shrine no earthly blossoms blow,

No footsteps fret the pathway to and fro,
No sign nor record of departed prayer,
Print of the stone, nor echo of the air,
Worn by the lip, nor wearied by the knee-
Only a deeper silence of the sea:
For there, in passing, pause the breezes
bleak,

And the foam fades and all the waves are weak:

The pulse-like oars in softer fall succeed, The black prow falters through the wild sea-weed,

Where twilight-borne the minute thunders ! reach

Of deep-mouthed surf that bays by Lido's beach.

LOCKER-LAMPSON. 1821-1895

TO MY GRANDMOTHER

This Relative of mine,

Was she seventy-and-nine
When she died?

By the canvas may be seen
How she look'd at seventeen,
As a Bride.

Beneath a summer tree'

Her maiden reverie.

Has a charm ;

Her ringlets are in taste;

་

What an arm and what a waist

For an arm!

With her bridal wreath, bouquet,
Lace farthingale, and gay

Falbala,

If Romney's touch be true,
What a lucky dog were you,
Grandpapa!

Her lips are sweet as love ;!

They are parting! Do they move?

Are they dumb ?

Her eyes are blue, and beam

Beseechingly, and seem

!

What funny fancy slips

From atween these cherry lips? Whisper me,

Fair sorceress in paint,
What canon says I mayn't
Marry thee?

That good-for-nothing Time
Has a confidence sublime!
When I first

Saw this Lady, in my youth,
Her winters had, forsooth,
Done their worst.

Her locks, as white as snow, Once shamed the swarthy crow;

Her rounded form was lean,
And her silk was bombazine;
Well I wot

With her needles would she sit,
And for hours would she knit,
Would she not ?

Ah, perishable clay !

Her charms had dropt away

One by one:

In travail, as in tears,

With the fardel of her years
Overprest,

In mercy she was borne
Where the weary and the worn
Are at rest.

O if you now are there

And sweet as once you were,

Grandmamma,

t

This nether world agrees,

You'll all the better please
Grandpapa.

MATTHEW ARNOLD. 1822-1888:

THE TOMB IN THE CHURCH OF BROU

So rest, for ever, O princely Pair!

In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air,

Where horn and hound and vassals never

come,

Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb, From the rich painted windows of the nave,

On aisle and transept, and your marble grave;

Where thou, young Prince! shall never more arise

From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies,

On autumn mornings, when the bugle sounds

To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till

eve;

And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive,

Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state,
The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,
Coming benighted to the castle-gate.

So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair!
Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair
On the carved western front a flood of
light

Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright

Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave,

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In the vast western window of the nave ; And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints··

A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints, And amethyst, and ruby-then unclose Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, And from your broider'd pillows lift your ; 'heads,

And rise upon your cold white marble Add: beds;

And, looking down on the warm rosy tints,