more divinely cheers,
And ripens with the suns and mellows with the spheres.

James Lionel Michael.

`Through Pleasant Paths'

Through pleasant paths, through dainty ways,
   Love leads my feet;
Where beauty shines with living rays,
   Soft, gentle, sweet;
The placid heart at random strays,
And sings, and smiles, and laughs and plays,
And gathers from the summer days
   Their light and heat,
That in its chambers burn and blaze
   And beam and beat.

I throw myself among the ferns
   Under the shade,
And watch the summer sun that burns
   On dell and glade;
To thee, my dear, my fancy turns,
In thee its Paradise discerns,
For thee it sighs, for thee it yearns,
   My chosen maid;
And that still depth of passion learns
   Which cannot fade.

The wind that whispers in the night,
   Subtle and free,
The gorgeous noonday's blinding light,
   On hill and tree,
All lovely things that meet my sight,
All shifting lovelinesses bright,
Speak to my heart with calm delight,
   Seeming to be
Cloth'd with enchantment, robed in white,
   To sing of thee.

The ways of life are hard and cold
   To one alone;
Bitter the strife for place and gold —
   We weep and groan:
But when love warms the heart grows bold;
And when our arms the prize enfold,
Dearest! the heart can hardly hold
   The bliss unknown,
Unspoken, never to be told —
   My own, my own!

Personality

      "Death is to us change, not consummation."
                               Heart of Midlothian.

A change! no, surely, not a change,
 The change must be before we die;
Death may confer a wider range,
 From pole to pole, from sea to sky,
It cannot make me new or strange
 To mine own Personality!

For what am I? — this mortal flesh,
 These shrinking nerves, this feeble frame,
For ever racked with ailments fresh
 And scarce from day to day the same —
A fly within the spider's mesh,
 A moth that plays around the flame!

THIS is not I — within such coil
 The immortal spirit rests awhile:
When this shall lie beneath the soil,
 Which its mere mortal parts defile,
THAT shall for ever live and foil
 Mortality, and pain, and guile.

Whatever Time may make of me
 Eternity must see me still
Clear from the dross of earth, and free
 From every stain of every ill;
Yet still, where-e'er — what-e'er I be,
 Time's work Eternity must fill.

When all the worlds have ceased to roll,
 When the long light has ceased to quiver
When we have reached our final goal
 And stand beside the Living River,
This vital spark — this loving soul,
 Must last for ever and for ever.

To choose what I must be is mine,
 Mine in these few and fleeting days,
I may be if I will, divine,
 Standing before God's throne in praise, —
Through all Eternity to shine
 In yonder Heaven's sapphire blaze.

Father, the soul that counts it gain
 To love Thee and Thy law on earth,
Unchanged but free from mortal stain,
 Increased in knowledge and in worth,
And purified from this world's pain,
 Shall find through Thee a second birth.

A change! no surely not a change!
 The change must be before we die;
Death may confer a wider range
 From world to world, from sky to sky,
It cannot make me new or strange
 To mine own Personality!

Daniel Henry Deniehy.

Love in a Cottage

A cottage small be mine, with porch
 Enwreathed with ivy green,
And brightsome flowers with dew-filled bells,
 'Mid brown old wattles seen.

And one to wait at shut of eve,
 With eyes as fountain clear,
And braided hair, and simple dress,
 My homeward step to hear.

On summer eves to sing old songs,
 And talk o'er early vows,
While stars look down like angels' eyes
 Amid the leafy boughs.

When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells,
 And bright-winged parrots call,
In forest paths be ours to rove
 Till purple evenings fall.

The curtains closed, by taper clear
 To read some page divine,
On winter nights, the hearth beside,
 Her soft, warm hand in mine.

And so to glide through busy life,
 Like some small brook alone,
That winds its way 'mid grassy knolls,
 Its music all its own.

A Song for the Night

O the Night, the Night, the solemn Night,
 When Earth is bound with her silent zone,
And the spangled sky seems a temple wide,
 Where the star-tribes kneel at the Godhead's throne;
O the Night, the Night, the wizard Night,
 When the garish reign of day is o'er,
And the myriad barques of the dream-elves come
 In a brightsome fleet from Slumber's shore!
      O the Night for me,
      When blithe and free,
Go the zephyr-hounds on their airy chase;
      When the moon is high
      In the dewy sky,
And the air is sweet as a bride's embrace!

O the Night, the Night, the charming Night!
 From the fountain side in the myrtle shade,
All softly creep on the slumbrous air
 The waking notes of the serenade;
While bright eyes shine 'mid the lattice-vines,
 And white arms droop o'er the sculptured sills,
And accents fall to the knights below,
 Like the babblings soft of mountain rills.
      Love in their eyes,
      Love in their sighs,
Love in the heave of each lily-bright bosom;
      In words so clear,
      Lest the listening ear
And the waiting heart may lose them.

O the silent Night, when the student dreams
 Of kneeling crowds round a sage's tomb;
And the mother's eyes o'er the cradle rain
 Tears for her baby's fading bloom;
O the peaceful Night, when stilled and o'er
 Is the charger's tramp on the battle plain,
And the bugle's sound and the sabre's flash,
 While the moon looks sad over heaps of slain;
      And tears bespeak
      On the iron cheek
Of the sentinel lonely pacing,
      Thoughts which roll
      Through his fearless soul,
Day's sterner mood replacing.

O the sacred Night, when memory comes
 With an aspect mild and sweet to me,
But her tones are sad as a ballad air
 In childhood heard on a nurse's knee;
And round her throng fair forms long fled,
 With brows of snow and hair of gold,
And eyes with the light of summer skies,
 And lips that speak of the days of old.
      Wide is your flight,
      O spirits of Night,
By strath, and stream, and grove,
      But most in the gloom
      Of the Poet's room
Ye choose, fair