AUSTERITY OF POETRY.

THAT Son of Italy who tried to blow,
Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song,
In his light youth amid a festal throng
Sate with his bride to see a public show.
Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow
Youth like a star; and what to youth belong -
Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.
A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,

Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! Shuddering, they drew her garments off- and found

A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.
Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,
Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground
Of thought and of austerity within.

A FAREWELL.

My horse's feet beside the lake,

Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,
Sent echoes through the night to wake
Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay.

The poplar avenue was pass'd,

And the roof'd bridge that spans the stream;
Up the steep street I hurried fast,
Led by thy taper's starlike beam.

I came! I saw thee rise!- the blood Pour'd flushing to thy languid cheek. Lock'd in each other's arms we stood, In tears, with hearts too full to speak.

Days flew;-ah, soon I could discern
A trouble in thine alter'd air!
Thy hand lay languidly in mine,

Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.

I blame thee not!- this heart, I know, To be long loved was never framed; For something in its depths doth glow Too strange, too restless, too untamed.

And women- things that live and move
Mined by the fever of the soul-
They seek to find in those they love
Stern strength, and promise of control.

They ask not kindness, gentle ways;
These they themselves have tried and known;
They ask a soul which never sways
With the blind gusts that shake their own.

I too have felt the load I bore
In a too strong emotion's sway;
I too have wish'd, no woman more,
This starting, feverish heart away.

I too have long'd for trenchant force,
And will like a dividing spear;

Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course,
Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear.

But in the world I learnt, what there
Thou too wilt surely one day prove,
That will, that energy, though rare,
Are yet far, far less rare than love.

Go, then! till time and fate impress This truth on thee, be mine no more! They will!- for thou, I feel, not less Than I, wast destined to this lore.

We school our manners, act our parts—
But He, who sees us through and through,
Knows that the bent of both our hearts
Was to be gentle, tranquil, true.

And though we wear out life, alas!
Distracted as a homeless wind,
In beating where we must not pass,
In seeking what we shall not find;
Yet we shall one day gain, life past,
Clear prospect o'er our being's whole;
Shall see ourselves, and learn at last
Our true affinities of soul.

We shall not then deny a course
To every thought the mass ignore;
We shall not then call hardness force,
Nor lightness wisdom any more.

Then, in the eternal Father's smile,
Our soothed, encouraged souls will dare
To seem as free from pride and guile,
As good, as generous, as they are.

Then we shall know our friends!-though much

Will have been lost - the help in strife,

The thousand sweet, still joys of such

As hand in hand face earthly life

Though these be lost, there will be yet
A sympathy august and pure;
Ennobled by a vast regret,
And by contrition seal'd thrice sure.

And we, whose ways were unlike here, May then more neighboring courses ply;

Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit, Ask'd an outfit for its earthly road.

Then, as now, this tremulous, eager being Strain'd and long'd and grasp'd each gift it saw; Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing Staved us back, and gave our choice the law.

Ah, whose hand that day through Heaven guided
Man's new spirit, since it was not we?
Ah, who sway'd our choice, and who decided
What our gifts, and what our wants should be?

For, alas! he left us each retaining
Shreds of gifts which he refused in full;
Still these waste us with their hopeless straining,
Still the attempt to use them proves them null.

And on earth we wander, groping, reeling;
Powers stir in us, stir and disappear.
Ah! and he, who placed our master-feeling,
Fail'd to place that master-feeling clear.

We but dream we have our wish'd-for powers,
Ends we seek we never shall attain.
Ah! some power exists there, which is ours?
Some end is there, we indeed may gain?

PERSISTENCY OF POETRY.

THOUGH the Muse be gone away, Though she move not earth to-day, Souls, erewhile who caught her word, Ah! still harp on what they heard.

A CAUTION TO POETS. WHAT poets feel not, when they make, A pleasure in creating.

The world, in its turn, will not take
Pleasure in contemplating,

SELF-DEPENDENCE.

WEAPY of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire
O'er the sea and to the stars I send:

"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, On my heart your mighty charm renew;

Buried a wave beneath,

The second wave succeeds, before

Too fast we live, too much are tried,

Too harass'd, to attain

Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's wide
And luminous view to gain.

-In Memory of Obermann.
POETRY.

No painter yet hath such a way,

Nor no musician made, as they,
And gather'd on immortal knolls
Such lovely flowers for cheering souls.
Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach

The charm which Homer, Shakespeare, teach.
To these, to these, their thankful race
Gives, then, the first, the fairest place;
And brightest is their glory's sheen,
For greatest hath their labor been.

-Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoon.

A

ARTHUR W. GUNDRY.

RTHUR W. GUNDRY was born of English parents in the city of Montreal, Canada, on December 13, 1857. His father's duties as bank manager entailed frequent change of residence, so that the only son spent his early youth sojourning for a time in Toronto, Chicago and New York, and ultimately in 1870 in London, England, where a more permanent home was established. After studying for a while with a private tutor, a term was put in at London University College School, followed by several years at Eastbourne College, where rapid progress in all matters of general education was made. During this period Mr. Gundry's literary proclivities first manifested themselves in frequent contributions to the Eastbournian, the college organ, and for some time before leaving the college he was editor of that journal. The family returning to Canada in 1875 and taking up their abode in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mr. Gundry attended two sessions at Dalhousie University, and at the same time kept his pen busy in the love of both prose and poetry, most of his writings finding their way into print through the local press. Going to Toronto to study law he soon became editorially connected with the Canadian Monthly, now defunct, but then in its prime. The pages of this periodical contain many signed and unsigned contributions from Mr. Gundry of a high order of merit. Other work from his pen appeared in the Toronto Nation, Montreal Spectator, and Canadian Illustrated News. Having been admitted to the bar Mr. Gundry went to Europe for a year, and on his return accepted a position in a large Wall street firm in New York, remaining there until 1884, in which year his translation of the Abbé Prévost's classic "Manon Lescaut" was published in sumptuous form and received very warm praise from the press. In 1884 a return was made to Canada, and the practice of his profession entered upon at Ottawa, the capital of the Dominion. Mr. Gundry has filled in the chinks of leisure by doing excellent poetical work for Life, Puck, Weekly Graphic, Belford's Magazine, New York Tribune, Evening Post, and other periodicals. Much as Mr. Gundry has written he can hardly be said to have yet done justice to himself. He is his own severest critic, and very hard to please. He has not attempted flights such as he is nevertheless well able to undertake. J. M. O.

LOVE'S LARCENY.

As Cupid, on a summer's day,

In idle sport was flitting

From place to place, he chanced to stray

Near where my love was sitting.