What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? "Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:

Then away with all such from the head that is hoary—
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

Oh fame!—if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

Lord Byron.

I FEAR THY KISSES, GENTLE MAIDEN

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden;
Thou needest not fear mine;

My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

P. B. Shelley.

POEMS ON BEREAVEMENT AND DEATH

REQUIESCAT

STREW on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;

Ah! would that I did too.

Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her "ound.

Her cabined, ample spirit,

It fluttered and failed for breath;
To-night it doth inherit

The vasty hall of death.

M. Arnold.

SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove;

A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye!
-Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

W. Wordsworth.

THE EDUCATION OF NATURE

THREE years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown:

This Child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.

'Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me

The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

'She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;

And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

'The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Ev'n in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

'The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round

And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

‘And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell.'

Thus Nature spake The work was doneHow soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

W. Wordsworth.

SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seem'd a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

W. Wordsworth.

ON SOUTHEY'S DEATH

FRIENDS, hear the words my wandering thoughts would say
And cast them into shape some other day;
Southey, my friend of forty years, is gone,
And shattered by the fall, I stand alone.

W. S. Landor.

HIGHLAND MARY

YE banks and braes and streams around

The castle o' Montgomery,

Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!

There simmer first unfauld her robes,

And there the langest tarry;

For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasp'd her to my bosom!
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.