perhaps hear nothing very surprising if you were to enquire about them in the neighborhoods where they dwelt."

The London press said of Miss Ingelow's book: "The new volume exhibits abundant evidence that time, study, and devotion to her vocation have both elevated and welcomed the powers of the most gifted poetess we possess, now that Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Adelaide Proctor sing no more on earth. Lincolnshire has claims to be considered the Arcadia of England at present, having given birth to Mr. Tennyson and our present Lady Laureate." Our most eminent American critic said: "The songs of Miss Ingelow sprang up suddenly and tunefully as skylarks from the daisy-spangled, hawthorn-bordered meadows of old England, with a blitheness long unknown, and in their idyllic underflights moved with the tenderest currents of human life. She may be termed an idyllic lyrist, her lyrical pieces having always much idyllic beauty. "High Tide," "Winstanley," "Songs of Seven," and the "Long White Seam are lyrical treasures, and the author especially may be said to evince that sincerity which is poetry's most enduring warrant."

The "Songs of Seven" though not an especial favorite with Jean Ingelow herself, will always be a favorite with the world, as long as love exists. "Divided" is a poem of great beauty and strength, - a poem which sings itself — imaginative, delicate, yet rich in feeling. "Sailing beyond Seas," which has been set to music, is a piece of music in study. Winstanley" is full of pathos and action. In 1864, a year after the "Poems" were published, "Studies for Stories" appeared,-five stories told in simple and clear language. "Stories told to a Child" was published in 1865; "A Story of Doom, and other Poems" in 1868; Mopsa the Fairy," an exquisite story, in 1869, and since that time "A Sister's Byehours," "Off the Skelligs" in 1872, Fated to be Free" in 1875, "Sarah de Berenger" in 1879, "Don John" in 1881, and "Poems of the Old Days and the New." Her books have had a large sale both here and in Europe. It is stated that one hundred thousand of her poems have been sold in this country, and half that number of her prose works. S. K. B.

66

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF

LINCOLNSHIRE.

THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers ran by two, by three; "Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells, Play uppe 'The Brides of Enderby.'”

And rearing Lindis backward pressed
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;
Then madly at the eygre's breast

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.
Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout-
Then beaten foam flew round about —
Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,

The heart had hardly time to beat, Before a shallow seething wave

Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet: The feet had hardly time to flee Beiore it brake against the knee, And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roofe we sate that night,

The noise of bells went sweeping by;

I marked the lofty beacon light

Stream from the church tower, red and high

A lurid mark and dread to see;

And awsome bells they were to mee,
That in the dark rang "Enderby."

They rang the sailor lads to guide

From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; And I my sonne was at my side,

And yet the ruddy beacon glowed; And yet he moaned beneath his breath, O come in life, or come in death!

O lost my love, Elizabeth."

And didst thou visit him no more?

Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;

The waters laid thee at his doore,

Ere yet the early dawn was clear.
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass.
That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!

To manye more than myne and mee:
But each will mourn his own (she saith).
And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more

By the reedy Lindis shore, "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Ere the early dews be falling;

I shall never hear her song,

"Cusha! Cusha!" all along Where the sunny Lindis floweth,

And made his married love a sacred thing: For yet his nobler sons, if aught be true, Find the lost Eden in their love to you.

REGRET.

O THAT Word REGRET!

There have been nights and morns when we have sighed,

"Let us alone, Regret! We are content

To throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleep

For aye." But it is patient, and it wakes;
It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep,
But plaineth on the bed that it is hard.
We did amiss when we did wish it gone
And over: sorrows humanize our race;
Tears are the showers that fertilize this world; ·
And memory of things precious keepeth warm
The heart that once did hold them.

They are poor
That have lost nothing; they are poorer far
Who, losing, have forgotten; they most poor
Of all, who lose and wish they MIGHT forget.
For life is one, and in its warp and woof
There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair,
And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet
Where there are sombre colors. It is true
That we have wept. But O! this thread of gold,
We would not have it tarnish; let us turn
Oft and look back upon the wondrous web,
And when it shineth sometimes we shall know
That memory is possession.

O for a life that shall not be refused

To see the lost things found, and waste things used.

WISHING.

WHEN I reflect how little I have done,
And add to that how little I have seen,
Then furthermore how little I have won

Of joy, or good, how little known, or been:
I long for other life more full, more keen,
And yearn to change with such as well have run-
Yet reason mocks me- nay, the soul, I ween,
Granted her choice would dare to change with none;
No, not to feel, as Blondel when his lay

Pierced the strong tower, and Richard answered it

No, not to do, as Eustace on the day

He left fair Calais to her weeping fitNo, not to be,- Columbus, waked from sleep When his new world rose from the charmèd deep.