O, your sweet eyes, your low replies!
A great enchantress you may be ;

But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

When thus he met his mother's view,
She had the passions of her kind,
She spake some certain truths of you:
Indeed I heard one bitter word
That scarce is fit for you to hear;
Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the cast of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall:
The guilt of blood is at your door;
You changed a wholesome heart to gall.
You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth;
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare,
And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me,
Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me
'Tis only noble to be good:

Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:
You pine among your halls and towers;
The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.

In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease,

You know so ill to deal with time,

You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Verè de Vere,

If Time be heavy on your hands,
Are there no beggars at your gate,
Nor any poor about your lands?
O teach the orphan-boy to read,
Or teach the orphan-girl to sew;
Pray Heaven for a human heart,
And let the foolish yeoman go.

OUR TRAVELLED PARSON.

WILL CARLETON.

FOR twenty years and over our good parson had been toiling To chip the bad meat from our hearts, and keep the good from spoiling;

But finally he wilted down, and went to looking sickly,

And the doctor said that something must be put up for him quickly.

So we kind of clubb'd together, each according to his notion,
And bought a circular ticket in the lands across the ocean;
Wrapp'd some pocket money in it, what we thought would easy

do him,

And appointed me committee-man to go and take it to him.

I found him in his study, looking rather worse than ever,
And told him 'twas decided that his flock and he should sever:
Then his eyes grew wide with wonder, and it seem'd almost to
blind 'em ;

And some tears look'd out o' window, with some others close behind 'em.

Then I handed him the ticket, with a little bow of deference;
And he studied quite a little ere he got his proper reference;
And then the tears that waited, great unmanageable creatures,
Let themselves quite out o' window, and came trickling down his
features.

I wish you could ha' seen him, coming back all fresh and glowing,
His clothes so worn and seedy, and his face so fat and knowing;
I wish you could have heard him when he pray'd for us who sent him.
And paid us back twice over all the money we had lent him.

'Twas a feast to all believers, 'twas a blight on contradiction, To hear one just from Calvary talk about the crucifixion; 'Twas a damper on those fellows who pretended they could doubt it,

To have a man, who'd been there, stand and tell them all about it

Paul, maybe, beat our pastor in the Bible knots unravelling,
And establishing new churches; but he couldn't touch him trav-
elling;

Nor in his journeys pick up half the general information;
But then he hadn't the railroads and the steamboat navigation.

And every foot of Scripture whose location used to stump us
Was now regularly laid out, with the different points of compass.
When he undertook a picture, he quite natural would draw it;
He would paint it out so honest that it seem'd as if you saw it.

An' the way he chisell'd Europe,

through it!

O, the way he scamper'd

Not a mountain dodged his climbing, not a city but he knew it : There wasn't any subject to explain in all creation,

But he could go to Europe and bring back an illustration.

So we crowded out to hear him, much instructed and delighted; 'Twas a picture-show, a lecture, and a sermon, all united;

And my wife would wipe her glasses, and serenely pat her Test' ment,

And whisper, "That ere ticket was a very good investment."

Now, after six months' travel we were most of us all ready
To settle down a little, so's to live more staid and steady;
To develop home resources, with no foreign cares to fret us,
Using home-made faith more frequent; but the parson wouldn't
let us.

To view the self-same scenery time and time again he'd call us;
Over rivers, plains, and mountains he would any minute haul us;
He slighted our home sorrows, and our spirits' aches and ailings,
To get the cargoes ready for his reg'lar Sunday sailings.

He would take us off a-touring in all spiritual weather,
Till we at last got homesick-like, and seasick altogether;

And "I wish to all that's peaceful," said one free-expression'd brother,

"That the Lord had made one cont'nent, and then never made another!"

Sometimes, indeed, he'd take us into sweet, familiar places,
And pull along quite steady in the good old gospel traces;
But soon my wife would shudder, just as if a chill had got her,
Whispering, "O, my goodness gracious! he's a-takin' to the
water!"

And it wasn't the same old comfort when he call'd around to

see us;

On a branch of foreign travel he was sure at last to tree us:
All unconscious of his error, he would sweetly patronize us,
And with oft-repeated stories still endeavour to surprise us.

And the sinners got to laughing; and that fin'lly gall'd and stung us

To ask him, "Would he kindly once more settle down among us? Didn't he think that more home-produce would improve our souls' digestions?"

They appointed me committee-man to go and ask the questions.

I found him in his garden, trim an' buoyant as a feather;
He press'd my hand, exclaiming, "This is quite Italian weather;
How it 'minds me of the evenings when, your distant hearts
caressing,

Upon my benefactors I invoked the heavenly blessing!"

I went and told the brothers, "No, I cannot bear to grieve him;
He's so happy in his exile, it's the proper place to leave him.
I took that journey to him, and right bitterly I rue it ;
But I cannot take it from him: if you want to, go and do it."

Now a new restraint entirely seem'd next Sunday to infold him, And he look'd so hurt and humbled that I knew some one had told him.

Subdued-like was his manner, and some tones were hardly vocal; But every word he utter'd was pre-eminently local.

The sermon sounded awkward, and we awkward felt who heard it:
'Twas a grief to see him hedge it, 'twas a pain to hear him word it:
"When I was in-" was, maybe, half a dozen times repeated,
But that sentence seem'd to scare him, and was always uncom-
pleted.

As weeks went on, his old smile would occasionally brighten,
But the voice was growing feeble, and the face began to whiten :
He would look off to the eastward with a listful, weary sighing;
And 'twas whisper'd that our pastor in a foreign land was dying.

The coffin lay 'mid garlands smiling sad as if they knew us;
The patient face within it preach'd a final sermon to us:
Our parson had gone touring on a trip he'd long been earning,
In that wonder-land whence tickets are not issued for returning.

O tender, good-soul'd shepherd! your sweet smiling lips, halfparted,

Told of scenery that burst on you just the minute that you started! Could you preach once more among us, you might wander without

fearing;

You could give us tales of glory we would never tire of hearing.

HAPPINESS OF ANIMALS.

WILLIAM COWPER.

HERE unmolested, through whatever sign
The Sun proceeds, I wander; neither mist,
Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me,
Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.
Even in the Spring and playtime of the year,
That calls th' unwonted villager abroad
With all her little ones, a sportive train,

To gather kingcups in the yellow mead,

These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,
Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarm'd
Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm
That age or injury has hollow'd deep,
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves
He has outslept the Winter, ventures forth,
To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,

Ascends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush.
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,

With all the prettiness of feign'd alarm,

And anger insignificantly fierce.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit

For human fellowship, as being void

Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike

To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,

Nor feels their happiness augment his own.

The bounding fawn that darts across the glade

When none pursues, through mere delight of heart