THE FUTURE Life.

I WONDER What the future life will be ?

Whether the flitting shadows love endears,
Which haunt the ruined pile of memory,
Will throw themselves beyond the stretch of
And there take beauteous shapes, and be to me
A source of constant joy, and not of tears.

[man's

[shrines years,

[this [nor seem, but be

How often slumbering memory wakes, to weep
For hours o'er some unnoticed, transient thing,
Which, sudden, roused it from its trance-like sleep,
To live a little heaven. How oft we sing
The song of other days, when hope did sweep

Its sanguine hand across life's firmer string! [Her

But now the wrecks of years lie scattered round, [time
Mere nothings which the wind may drive away;

Will these be gathered up from off the ground?

Be set in forms that never shall decay?

Or speak again in tones whose mellow sound

[-round

Still rings in music which my heart-strings play? [Whose ringing

Ah, in the breast fierce passion's smouldering fires
Still live, and wait but slightest touch to blaze; [by
Then make a wreck of holiest desires,

And stern resolves to their foundations raze;

While in its arms the fairer-blooming life expires,
Pierced to the heart by its consuming rays.

Will these deep-buried loves again revive?

Will passion's fires be quenched? Will discipline

Of faith and virtue in that sphere survive?

Will all those objects that touch thoughts within, [stir Be ever present to preserve alive

The joy that rises up through years of sin?

Fair hopes that budded in the days of youth,
The colder blasts of manhood's winter blight;
And vows, though daughters of eternal truth,
Lay round me dead,-slain in a single night:
Will these re-live, untouched by hand of ruth,
And shall I cherish them with fond delight?

[live them o'er

Oh, had I wings! how swiftly would I flee,
And linger round that life beyond our ken!
So childhood lingers round its youth to be,
So youth we spend in longings to be men:
O God, reveal to us the mystery;

[quickly come

Quickly come, Lord Jesus; even so, Amen." [Lord Jesus,

Far there our utmost thought may wing and sweep

Through yon immensity of space; thence rise, [vast immensities
And from the topmost pinnacle hence leap

To higher plains, where wing of seraph plies
Untired, yet fail to reach the unbounded deep,

Still wondering where the home of Godhead lies. DIAMOND.

The form of verse in which C. S. has chosen to cast his poem is difficult to manage, and requires attention to its recurrences before it can be taken into the mind. The chime is unfamiliar, but when read lovingly it gains upon one. Consistency and condensation might here, too, have been advisably employed, especially in stanzas three and four. The verses must have cost considerable trouble, and no little skill in word-building is noticeable in the "lofty rhyme." We think there are poetic gleams amid the darkness of his spirit which enable us to bid him hope, work, think, and wait.

AMBITION.

[heart

O BECKONING maiden! whose deep-searching eyes
Have thrilled me to the soul-whose voice has sought

So oft to teach me and to make me wise

To fill my mind with true and earnest thought,
That thou might'st pluck therefrom pure poesy.

O stern ambition! wilt thou ever seek

Me thus, and with thy yearnings haunt my soul?
And is it doomed that I shall aye be weak?
That I shall pant in vain to reach the goal?
Or shalt thou give me strength, or make me free?

Although my years are few, yet thou art old

Unto my sight, for in my dreams thy form

Hath haunted me since life was joy untold

[daunt

[Must I still [Wilt thou not

And aye, when joy grows cold thou keep'st life warm. [Faith-hope
At first thou wert a shadow without name,

But as I gazed the life-mist cleared away;

Life, love, and light grew strong, and I felt fonder

Of thy form, and joyed the more I bore thy sway,

[felt

Then lo! thy hand outstretched, thy voice cried, "Yonder!"

I looked, and I beheld the hill of fame.

[saw far off

Together towards that hill we walked; and lo!
Two spirits flew around us-hope and fear,-
One cheered me on and urged me aye to go,
The other bade me turn; and filled my ear

With warnings dire of those who'd gone before,
At which I felt sad, sad, that sight was mine,
And wished that thou and hope from me were gone;
But thou stood'st forth and took my hand in thine,
While hope, with songs of love, still cheered me on,
Though fear oft hovered near, and pained me sore.

Now I have gained a hillock on the hill,

But, as I look above, the heights increase,
And other heights appear, while I am still

Led on by thee, and hope, which should grant peace,
Still makes my soul enthusiast, though fear

Oft clasps me round the waist, and in despair
Shrieks out, and points to distant darkness, seen
More plainly as we higher rise. "See, there
Is misery;" then hope doth intervene-

"The future? Ah! 'tis bright while I am near."

O onward-urging fame! but thou art strong;
O hope omnipotent! if thou art kind
Still thou art merciless, and ah, how long!
Or ah, how long shall I be mortal, blind
To joys, for love of immortality?

O back-recoiling fear! why art thou fond

To crush our aims, and cause us pain, by being

The rival unto hope? O! break my bond,

Pale-faced ambition! or is there no fleeing

From thy stern thrall? Ah, would that I were free!

[still

C. S.

We interpose for variety's sake some verse in a lighter measure, and a simpler theme. These lines are just of the sort to which memory gives interest, because association aids the signification. They have a lilt, caught from the winds of the Mearns.

WHITE HEATHER.

[Suggested on a plant of white heather being found by an excursion party on Ker-loch Hill, a ridge of the Grampians, in Kincardineshire. It is a somewhat rare plant in a wild state.]

We like the spirit and admire the heartiness of W. D. in the piece which follows, and gladly give place to his good wishes :

GOD BLESS OUR WORKING MEN.

God bless our noble working men,
Who work on rail or road;

O smile upon their families,

And on each one's abode!

[toil

We quote next a good many stanzas which might have been much better expressed if they had been diligently compressed, and had the author kept one idea more persistently before him. The topic, and the spirit in which the verses are conceived, commend themselves to our sympathies; and we would gladly have given a higher opinion had we been honestly able. Religious poetry above all others should be intense, compact, clear, and telling. In it any. thing more is vain. The stanzas enclosed in brackets appear to us to break the continuity of the poem, and the capital point made in the opening of the fourth verse is not effectively sustained. Ought not the tenth verse to have been transformed somewhat thus ?

"Shrink not from life's cup of scorn,
The cup of joy shall be thy prize;
Soon he who sorrow so has borne
To unfathomed bliss shall rise."