ILICET.

HEN first the rose-light creeps into my room
And stirs the liquid gloom,

My heart awakes, and sighs with its old pain,
Its ringing pulses jar with their old strain,
And Love, my lord and bane,

Renews that wild desire that is my doom.

To free myself from him, I rise and go,

Down terrace-paths below,

Whence watered gardens lead by winding ways To that green haunt and bay-environed maze, Where, in these summer days,

She early walks whose soul attracts me so.

Fool and forgetful! Shall I cool desire
By looking at those lovely eyes of hers,
That passionate Love prefers

To his own brand for setting hearts on fire?

C

O fool! to dream that what began with pain
Could end it! Rather, noiseless, let me fly
Out of her world, and die,

Where hopeless longing knows that all is vain.

EDMUND W. GOSSE.

GATHERED ROSES.

NLY a bee made prisoner,

Caught in a gathered rose !

Was he not 'ware, a flower so fair
For the first gatherer grows?

Only a heart made prisoner,

Going out free no more!

Was he not 'ware, a face so fair

Must have been gathered before?

F. W. BOURDILLON.

A WORM WITHIN THE ROSE.

A

ROSE, but one, none other rose had I,

A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair,
One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and

sky,

One rose, my rose, that sweetened all my air-
I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there.

One rose, a rose to gather by and by,
One rose, one rose, to gather and to wear,
No rose but one-what other rose had I?
One rose, my rose ; a rose that will not die,—
He dies who loves it,-if the worm be there.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

LOVE.

O, the year's done with!
(Love me for ever!)
All March begun with,
April's endeavour ;

May-wreaths that bound me.
June needs must sever;
Now snows fall round me,
Quenching June's fever-
(Love me for ever!)

ROBERT BROWNING.