* * * * * SONNET.[1] BY THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. How often have I fixed a stranger’s gaze On yonder turrets clad in light as fair As this soft sunset lends—pleas’d to drink air Of learning that from calm of ancient days Breathes ’round them ever:—now to me they wear The tinge of dearer thought; the radiant haze That crowns them thickens as, with fonder care, And by its flickering sparkles, sense conveys Of youth’s first triumphs:—for amid their seats One little student’s heart impatient beats With blood of mine. O God, vouchsafe him power When I am dust to stand on this sweet place And, through the vista of long years, embrace Without a blush this first Etonian hour! ----- [1] It is with high gratification that we present our readers, this month, with this elegant _original_ poem from the pen of Sergeant Noon Talfourd, of England, the author of “Ion,” and, perhaps, the first living poet of his age. In the letter accompanying the verses he speaks of them as “my last effusion on an occasion very dear to me—composed in view of Eton college after leaving my eldest son there for the first time.” * * * * * THE GOBLET OF LIFE. BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim;— And though my eyes with tears are dim, I see its sparkling bubbles swim, And chaunt this melancholy hymn, With solemn voice and slow. No purple flowers—no garlands green Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between The leaves of mistletoe. This goblet, wrought with curious art, Is filled with waters that upstart, When the deep fountains of the heart, By strong convulsion rent apart, Are running all to waste; And, as it mantling passes round, With fennel is it wreathed and crowned, Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned, Are in its waters steeped and drowned, And give a bitter taste. Above the humbler plants it towers, The fennel, with its yellow flowers; And in an earlier age than ours Was gifted with the wondrous powers Lost vision to restore: It gave new strength and fearless mood, And gladiators fierce and rude Mingled it in their daily food; And he who battled and subdued A wreath of fennel wore. Then in Life’s goblet freely press The leaves that give it bitterness, Nor prize the colored waters less, For in thy darkness and distress New light and strength they give. For he who has not learned to know How false its sparkling bubbles show, How bitter are the drops of woe With which its brim may overflow, He has not learned to live!