"Be not triumphant, little flower, When on her haughty heart you lie, But modestly enjoy your hour: She'll weary of you by-and-by." XCIX. KINGS OF MEN. JOHN READE.--1837- As hills seem Alps, when veil'd in misty shroud, Some men seem kings, through mists of ignorance; Must we have darkness, then, and cloud on cloud, To give our hills and pigmy kings a chance? Must we conspire to curse the humbling light, Lest some one, at whose feet our fathers bow'd, Should suddenly appear, full length, in sight, Scaring to laughter the adoring crowd? Oh, no! God send us light!--Who loses then? The king of slaves and not the king of men. True kings are kings for ever, crown'd of God, The King of Kings,--we need not fear for them. 'Tis only the usurper's diadem That shakes at touch of light, revealing fraud. C. THALATTA! THALATTA! JOHN READE. In my ear is the moan of the pines--in my heart is the song of the sea, And I feel his salt breath on my face as he showers his kisses on me, And I hear the wild scream of the gulls, as they answer the call of the tide, And I watch the fair sails as they glisten like gems on the breast of a bride. From the rock where I stand to the sun is a pathway of sapphire and gold, Like a waif of those Patmian visions that wrapt the lone seer of old, And it seems to my soul like an omen that calls me far over the sea-- But I think of a little white cottage and one that is dearest to me. Westward ho! Far away to the East is a cottage that looks to the shore,-- Though each drop in the sea were a tear, as it was, I can see it no more; For the heart of its pride with the flowers of the "Vale of the Shadow" reclines, And--hush'd is the song of the sea and hoarse is the moan of the pines. CI. THE FORSAKEN GARDEN. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.--1837- In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee, Wall'd round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses The steep square slope of the blossomless bed Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses Now lie dead. The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken, To the low last edge of the long lone land. If a step should sound or a word be spoken, Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand? So long have the gray bare walks lain guestless, Through branches and briers if a man make way, He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless Night and day.