CLEOPATRA.

(From "Antony and Cleopatra," Act II., Scene 2.)

THE

HE barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,

Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue),
O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cu-
pids,

With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did

seem

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy; for the reader Was youngest of them all;

cool,

And what they undid, did.

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i'the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft
hands, .

That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthron'd in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: Other women
Cloy th' appetites they feed: but she makes
hungry

Where most she satisfies.

A silence seemed to fall.

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp, with "Nell" on English meadows,

Wandered and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes, o'ertaken
As by some spell divine,

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken

From out the gusty pine.

Lost in that camp and wasted all its fire;
And he who wrought that spell?
Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire.
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills
With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly

With laurel wreaths entwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,
This spray of western pine!

(FRANCIS) BRET HARTE

EMILIE.

(From the "Knight's Tale."')

HUS passeth year by year, and day by day, Till it fell once on a morrow of May, That Emilie, that fairer was to seen Than is the lily upon her stalk green, And fresher than the May with floures newFor with the rose colour strove her hue, I n'ot which was the fairer of them twoEre it was day, as it was her wont to do, She was arisen, and all already dightFor May will have no sluggardie a-night. The season pricketh every gentle heart, And maketh him out of his sleepe start, And saith: "Arise, and do thine observance!" This maketh Emilie have remembrance To do honour to May, and for to rise, Yclothed was she fresh for to devise. Her yellow hair was braided in a tress, Behind her back, a yard long, I guess; And in her garden, as the sun uprist, She walked up and down, and as her list, She gathereth floures, party white and red, To make a sotil garland for her head; And as an angel heavenly she sung!

M

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

A POET'S CREED.

Y soul drinks in its future life

Like some green forest thrice cut down, Whose shoots defy the axmen's strife, And skyward spread a greener crown. While sunshine gilds my aged head

And bounteous earth supplies my food, The lamps of God their soft light shed And distant worlds are understood.

Say not my soul is but a clod,

Resultant of my body's powers;
She plumes her wings to fly to God,
And will not rest outside His bowers.

The Winter's snows are on my brow,
But Summer suns more brightly glow,
And violets, lilacs, roses now,

Seem sweeter than long years ago.
As I approach my earthly end,
Much plainer can I hear afar,
Immortal symphonies which blend,
To welcome me from star to star.

Though marvelous, it still is plain;
A fairy tale, yet history,

(From "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act IV., Scene 2.)

WHO is Silvia? What is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heavens such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.

Is she kind, as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness: Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,
Upon the dull earth dwelling.
To her let us garlands bring.

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

S1

HE was a phantom of delight
When first she glanced upon my
sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn ;
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her, upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too-

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and
smiles.

And now I see, with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveler between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command,
And yet a Spirit, too, and bright
With something of an angel light.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

JF

ENNIE kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in;

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jennie kissed me!

LEIGH HUNT.

The banishment was overlong,

But it will soon be past;

The man who wrote Home's sweetest song Shall have a home at last!

And he shall rest where laurels wave

And fragrant grasses twine;

His sweetly kept and honored grave
Shall be a sacred shrine,

And pilgrims with glad eyes grown dim
Will fondly bend above

The man who sung the triumph hymn
Of earth's divinest love.

WILL H. CARLETON.

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

(Read at the unveiling of the bust at Prospect Park, Brooklyn.)

Thim was so sweet, the simple lay

O him who sang of "Home, sweet home,"

Has thrilled a million hearts, we come
A nation's grateful debt to pay.
Yet, not for him the bust we raise;
Ah, no! can lifeless lips prolong
Fame's trumpet voice? The poet's praise
Lives in the music of his song!

The noble dead we fondly seek

To honor with applauding breath;
Unheeded fall the words we speak,
Upon "the dull, cold ear of death."
Yet, not in vain the spoken word;

Nor vain the monument we raise;
With quicker throbs our hearts are stirred
To catch the nobleness we praise!

Columbia's sons-we share his fame;
'Tis for ourselves the bust we rear,
That they who mark the graven name
May know that name to us is dear;
Dear as the home the exile sees-

The fairest spot beneath the sky-
Where, first-upon a mother's knees-
He slept, and where he yearns to die.

But not alone the lyric fire

Was his, the Drama's muse can tell;
His genius could a Kean inspire;

A Kemble owned his magic spell;
A Kean, to "Brutus" "self so true
(As true to Art and Nature's laws),
He seemed the man the poet drew,

And shared with him the town's applause.

Kind hearts and brave with truth severe
He drew, unconscious, from his own;