In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt!

But why do I talk of Death? That phantom of grizzly bone; I hardly fear his terrible shape, It seems so like my own:

It seems so like my own, Because of the fasts I keep ;

O God! that bread should be so dear And flesh and blood so cheap!

My labor never flags;

And what are the wages? A bed of straw, A crust of bread, and rags!

That shattered roof, and this naked floor, A table, a broken chair,

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there.

Band, and gusset, and seem,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed As well as the weary hand.

In the dull December light!

And work work—work,

When the weather is warm and bright;

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their pretty backs,
And twit me with the Spring.

O! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet; With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet,

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal!

O! but for one short hour!

A respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!-

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch-
Would that its tone could reach the rich.
She sang this Song of the Shirt!

OOFT, PIETER CORNELISZOON, a Dutch poet, dramatist and historian; born at Amsterdam,

March 16, 1581; died at The Hague, May 21, 1647. His father was a burgomaster, and was well known throughout Holland as a patron of literature. At the age of seventeen Hooft became a member of the Eglantine Chamber of Rhetoric and produced his Achilles and Polyrena. The same year he left home on an extensive tour of France, Italy, and Germany; during which he sent to the Eglantine a metrical Letter, dated July, 1600, which marks an epoch in the development of the poetry of the Netherlands. Returning home in 1601, he produced his tragedy of Ariadne (1602), and finished his drama of Granida (1605). In 1606 he began the study of law at Leyden; and three years later he took up his final residence at Muiden, under the patronage of the Prince of Orange, who made him Lord of Weesp. In 1610 he married Christina van Erp, the celebrated botanist. During the following eight years he produced his Geeraerdt van Velsen (1612), a national tragedy of the time of Count Floris V.; Ware-nar (1614), a comedy after Plautus; Baeto, or The Origin of the Dutch (1618). In 1618 he turned his attention to the writing of history, and published thereafter his History of Henry the Great (1626); Miseries of the Princes of the House of Medici (1638); and Dutch History (1642).

Hooft is considered one of the most influential writers in the history of Dutch literature; after Vondel, perhaps he is the brightest literary figure that Holland has produced. His verses describing the way in

which his friend Tesselschade Visscher, the most renowned of Dutch female poets, spent her time while visiting him at Muiden, are in his happiest vein.

TESSELSCHADE AT MUIDEN.

Love-god, stern of sovereignty,
Mark the maiden of the Y,
Who in her proud youth and story
Robs thy mother of her glory;
Blushing cheek, and winsome guile.
And a lovely artless smile!

What employs her leisure so?
Thoughts are working, fingers go:
Busy are her eyes, drooped sweetly,
Throat and lips are warbling featly,
Youth and joy can have no fence
'Gainst such dangerous diligence.

Now she makes the diamond pass
O'er the dumb face of the glass;
Now with golden thread she lingers,
Painting cloth with nimble fingers;
Now the pencil bears, and pen,
Kindly charming idle men.

See, she curves her slender throat's
Outline up and down the notes!
Or to words her eyes she's liming,
All her soul gone out in rhyming!
Or she bends her gracious tongue
To the French or Roman song!

-Translation of EDMUND Gosse.

ANACREONTIC.

Three long years have o'erwhelmed me in sadness, Since the sun veiled his vision of gladness:

Sorrow he banished for sorrow is dreary;

Sorrow and gloom but outweary the weary.
In my heart I perceive the day breaking;
I cannot resist its waking.

On my brow a new sun is arisen,

And bright is its glance o'er my prison; Gayly and grandly it sparkles about me, Flowingly shines it within and without me: Why, why should dejection disarm me— My fears or my fancies alarm me?

Laughing light, lovely life, in the heaven.
Of thy forehead is virtue engraven;
Thy red coral lips, when they breathe an assenting,
To me are a dawn which Apollo is painting;

Thy eyes drive the gloom, with their sparkling,
Where sadness and folly sit darkling.

Lovely eyes, then the beauties have bound them,
And scattered their shadows around them;
Stars, in whose twinklings the virtues and graces,
Sweetness and meekness, all hold their high places,
But the brightest of stars is but twilight,
Compared with that beautiful eye-light.

Fragrant mouth-all the flowers Spring is wreathing
Are dull to the sweets thou art breathing;

The charms of thy song might summon the spirit
To sit on the ears all-enchanted to hear it:

What marvel, then, if in its kisses,

My soul is o'erwhelmed with sweet blisses?

O how blest, how divine the employment! How heavenly, how high the enjoyment! Delicate lips, and soft, amorous glances,— Kindling, and quenching, and fanning sweet fancies,Now, now to my heart's centre rushing, And now through my veins they are gushing.

Dazzling eyes, that but laugh at our ruin,
Nor think of the wrongs ye are doing,-