He stopped a minute, and now, without looking,--indeed, he looked everywhere but at me, while we talked,--made a bow as if just seating me from a waltz, and, with his eyes and his smile on Louise all the way down the room, went out. Did you ever know such insolence? [To be continued.] SONG OF NATURE. Mine are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gulf of space, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days. I hide in the blinding glory, I lurk in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, In death, new-born and strong. No numbers have counted my tallies, No tribes my house can fill, I sit by the shining Fount of life, And pour the deluge still. And ever by delicate powers Gathering along the centuries From race on race the fairest flowers, My wreath shall nothing miss. And many a thousand summers My apples ripened well, And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell. I wrote the past in characters Of rock and fire the scroll, The building in the coral sea, The planting of the coal. And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew, And out of spent and aged things I formed the world anew. What time the gods kept carnival, Tricked out in star and flower, And in cramp elf and saurian forms They swathed their too much power. Time and Thought were my surveyors, They laid their courses well, They boiled the sea, and baked the layers Of granite, marl, and shell. But him--the man-child glorious, Where tarries he the while? The rainbow shines his harbinger, The sunset gleams his smile. My boreal lights leap upward, Forthright my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The summit of the whole. Must time and tide forever run? Will never my winds go sleep in the West? Will never my wheels, which whirl the sun And satellites, have rest? Too much of donning and doffing, Too slow the rainbow fades; I weary of my robe of snow, My leaves, and my cascades. I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is played; What, without him, is summer's pomp, Or winter's frozen shade? I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate. Twice I have moulded an image, And thrice outstretched my hand, Made one of day, and one of night, And one of the salt-sea-sand. I moulded kings and saviours, And bards o'er kings to rule; But fell the starry influence short, The cup was never full. Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, And mix the bowl again, Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, Heat, cold, dry, wet, and peace and pain Let war and trade and creeds and song Blend, ripen race on race,-- The sunburnt world a man shall breed Of all the zones and countless days.