I have strained the spider's thread 'Gainst the promise of a maid; I have weighed a grain of sand 'Gainst her plight of heart and hand; I told my true love of the token How her faith proved light and her word was broken;

Again her word and truth she plight, And I believed them again ere night.

WANDERING WILLIE.

ALL joy was bereft me the day that you left me,

And climbed the tall vessel to sail yon high sea; fit, O weary betide it! I wandered beside And banned it for parting my Willie and me.

Far o'er the wave hast thou followed thy fortune,

Till, at times - could I help it ?—I pined and I pondered

If love could change notes like the bird on the tree

and of Spain;

Ae kiss of welcome's worth twenty at

have wandered,

Dark green was the spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather, Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay,

Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,

For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended,

The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the

raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start ? How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh! was it meet, that -no requiem read o'er him

No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before himUnhonored the pilgrim from life should depart ?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; In the proudly - arched chapel the banners are beaming,

Far adown the long aisles sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,

When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,'

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,

With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.

Now, at the fount their life-long thirst are quenching,

Whence rise the gentle showers, the nightly dew.

They drink the quickening streams through every fibre,

Until with hidden life each seed shall swell;

Then come the winds of God, his word fulfilling,

And bear them back, where He shall please, to dwell.

Thus live meek spirits, duly schooled to duty,

The whirlwind storm may sweep them from their place; What matter if by this affliction driven

Straight to their God, the fountain of all grace?

And when, at length, the final trial cometh,

Though hurled to unknown worlds, they shall not die;

Borne not by winds of wrath, but God's own angels,

They feed upon His love and dwell beneath His eye.

Till by the angel of the resurrection, One awful blast through heaven and earth be blown;

floating,

That in their desert homes no moisture knew,

sunder,

That all God's ways are true and just shall own!

lighten

By daily sympathy and gentle tone.

Not by deeds that gain the world's applauses,

Not by works that win thee world renown,

thou rovest,

Sighing that they are not thine alone,

Not those fair fields, but thyself thou lovest,

And their beauty and thy wealth

are gone.

Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth.

then, the justice,

And

In fair round belly, with good capon lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;

His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shanks; and his big manly voice,

Turning again towards childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion:

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

[From As You Like It.]
INGRATITUDE.

BLOW, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude!
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the
green holly:

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:

Then heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot! Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not. "Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho, &c."

[From Hamlet.]

TO BE, OR NOT TO BE.

To BE, or not to be, that is the question

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing end them? To die-to sleep — [end No more; and by a sleep to say we The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to!-'tis a consummation