THE FUTURE Life. I WONDER What the future life will be ? Whether the flitting shadows love endears, [man's [shrines years, [this [nor seem, but be How often slumbering memory wakes, to weep Its sanguine hand across life's firmer string! [Her But now the wrecks of years lie scattered round, [time 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 And stern resolves to their foundations raze; While in its arms the fairer-blooming life expires, 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, [live them o'er Oh, had I wings! how swiftly would I flee, [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 To higher plains, where wing of seraph plies 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 So oft to teach me and to make me wise To fill my mind with true and earnest thought, O stern ambition! wilt thou ever seek Me thus, and with thy yearnings haunt my soul? 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 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! With warnings dire of those who'd gone before, Now I have gained a hillock on the hill, But, as I look above, the heights increase, Led on by thee, and hope, which should grant peace, Oft clasps me round the waist, and in despair "The future? Ah! 'tis bright while I am near." O onward-urging fame! but thou art strong; 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, 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, |