Strong purposes our mind possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still. O end to which our currents tend, Inevitable sea, To which we flow, what do we know, What shall we guess of thee? A roar we hear upon thy shore, As we our course fulfil; Scarce we divine a sun will shine And be above us still. _IN A LONDON SQUARE._ Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, East wind and frost are safely gone; With zephyr mild and balmy rain The summer comes serenely on; Earth, air, and sun and skies combine To promise all that’s kind and fair:— But thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, contain thyself, and bear. December days were brief and chill, The winds of March were wild and drear, And, nearing and receding still, Spring never would, we thought, be here. The leaves that burst, the suns that shine, Had, not the less, their certain date:— And thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, refrain thyself, and wait. THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH: A LONG-VACATION PASTORAL. _Nunc formosissimus annus_ _Ite meæ felix quondam pecus, ite camenæ._ _THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH._ I _Socii cratera coronant._ It was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending. Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer; Up the perpendicular hill, Sir Hector so called it, Eight stout gillies had run, with speed and agility wondrous; Run too the course on the level had been; the leaping was over: Last in the show of dress, a novelty recently added, Noble ladies their prizes adjudged for costume that was perfect, Turning the clansmen about, as they stood with upraised elbows; Bowing their eye-glassed brows, and fingering kilt and sporran. It was four of the clock, and the sports were come to the ending, Therefore the Oxford party went off to adorn for the dinner. Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing. Hope was first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, His Honour; For the postman made out he was heir to the earldom of Ilay (Being the younger son of the younger brother, the Colonel), Treated him therefore with special respect; doffed bonnet, and ever Called him His Honour: His Honour he therefore was at the cottage; Always His Honour at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay. Hope was first, His Honour, and next to His Honour the Tutor. Still more plain the Tutor, the grave man, nicknamed Adam, White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling beneath it; Skilful in Ethics and Logic, in Pindar and Poets unrivalled; _Shady_ in Latin, said Lindsay, but _topping_ in Plays and Aldrich. Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat work of a lady, Lindsay succeeded; the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay,