TOO LATE.

"When we want, we have for our pains
The promise that if we but wait

Till the want has burned out of our brains,
Every means shall be present to state;

While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late-too late!

"When strawberries seemed like red heavens
Terrapin stew a wild dream--

When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had 'folks' and ice-cream,
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger
At the restaurant man and fruit-monger-
But oh! how I wished I were younger

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When the goodies all came in a stream! in a stream!

“I've a splendid blood horse, and—a liver

That it jars into torture to trot;

My row-boat's the gem of the river

Gout makes every knuckle a knot !

I can buy boundless credits on Paris and Rome,
But no palate for ménes-no eyes for a dome-
Those belonged to the youth who must tarry at home,
When no home but an attic he'd got-he'd got!

"How I longed, in that lonest of garrets,
Where the tiles baked my brains all July,
For ground to grow two pecks of carrots,
Two pigs of my own in a sty,

A rose-bush--a little thatched cottage-
Two spoons-love-a basin of pottage !—
Now in freestone I sit-and my dotage-

With a woman's chair empty close by-close by!

"Ah! now, though I sit on a rock,

I have shared one seat with the great;
I have sat-knowing nought of the clock-
On love's high throne of state;

But the lips that kissed, and the arms that caressed,
To a mouth grown stern with delay were pressed,
And circled a breast that their clasp had blessed
Had they only not come too late! too late!"
FITZ HUGH LUDLOW

Longing.

F all the myriad moods of mind

OF

That through the soul come thronging, Which one was e'er so dear, so kind,

So beautiful as longing?

The thing we long for that we are,
For one transcendent moment;
Before the present poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment.

Still through our paltry stir and strife,
Grows down our wished Ideal;
And longing moulds in clay what life
Carves in the marble Real;

To let the new life in, we know,
Desire must ope the portal;

Perhaps the longing to be so
Helps make the soul immortal.

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will,

With our poor earthward striving;

We quench it that we may be still
Content with merely living;

EACH AND ALL.

But would we know that heart's full scope,
Which we are hourly wronging,

Our lives must climb from hope to hope,
And realize our longing.

Ah! let us hope that to our praise
Good God not only reckons

The moments when we tread his ways,
But when the spirit beckons;

That some slight good is also wrought
Beyond self-satisfaction,

When we are simply good in thought,

Howe'er we fail in action.

JAMES R. Lowell.

L

Each and All.

ITTLE thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,

Of thee from the hill-top looking down;

The heifer that lows in the upland farm,

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ;
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height
Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one--
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He sings the song, but it pleases not now ;
For I did not bring home the river and sky:
He sang to my ear-they sang to my eye.

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The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam-
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed;

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white choir.

At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;

The gay enchantment was undone

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat

I leave it behind with the games of youth."-
As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole-
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

RALPH W. EMERSON.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

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A

Qua Cursum Ventus.

S ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail, at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried;

When fell the night unsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied;
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so-but why the tale reveal

Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew, to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered;
Ah! neither blame, for neither willed

Or wist what first with dawn appeared.

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too!
Through winds and tides one compass guides—
To that and your own selves be true.

But O, blithe breeze! and O, great seas!
Though ne'er-that earliest parting past,—

On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought-
One purpose hold where'er they fare;
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there!

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.