Disconsolate and sad, he wanders to and fro;
Gone the sweet hours of peace he once did know;
All pleasures on his morbid mind do pall,
And racking thoughts disturb his guilty soul.

Thus is it e'er with rebels to our God-
Sure as they sin, so shall they feel the rod;
Fore'er be banish'd from Jehovah's face,
Until redeem'd by Christ's all-saving grace.

Henry's Soliloquy.*

IT must be so-Scribo, thou reasonest well-
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after notoriety?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks my soul
Back on itself, and startles at obscurity?

'Tis the ambition that stirs within me;

'Tis ambition itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates undying fame to my aspiring soul. Fame! thou pleasing, flattering thing!

Through what variety of trying circumstances must I pass; What calumny and slander must I endure!

And, after all, must bear the dread of base responsibility. The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me,

But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.

Thus have I two alternatives-obscurity and fame.

My bane and antidote are both before me.

This but ranks me with the base herd of nameless mortals, But this informs me I shall never die.

Myself, secure in my boundless wealth, can smile

At the idle taunts and malicious obloquy of envious foes, And defy their spleen;

The town shall pass away, Herbert himself grow cold and shy,

And W*d**th be a foe,

But I shall flourish in immortal wealth,

Unhurt amid the war of ratepayers,

The wreck of editors, and the crash of boards.

*Henry" was the Chairman of the Cleckheaton Local Board, 1867 or 1868.

MISS LUCY ETHEL BIRKBY.

BY THE REV. JOSEPH STRAUSS, M.A. PH.D.

PRINCIPAL MINISTER OF THE BRADFORD SYNAGOGUE, AND LECTURER IN ORIENTAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES AT THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY; DEPUTY EXAMINER IN GERMAN AT THE ROYAL

COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS, ETC.

MISS ETHEL BIRKBY was born at Liversedge on the 30th of September, 1873. She has made many pleasing contributions in prose and verse to the local papers. Though probably the youngest author in this volume, for many years past Miss Birkby's contributions have been looked forward to by the reading public with more eagerness than any other local author. She has been successful in carrying off first honours in each of the numerous competitions in which she has taken part. The titles of some of her prose writings are as follows: "Brother and Sister," "The Pride of Victory, ""The Ghost of the Haunted Bath," "In Days of Old, " "Within Sound of the Sea, " etc. etc. With regard to her poems she has been equally successful. Her style is easy, her diction graceful, and her verse flows smoothly. We give a few specimens, which show her talent in serious as well as humorous poetry.

WHEN the field-flow'rs close their petals
And the night-tide gathers round;
When the birds are flying homeward,
And the shadows strew the ground;
When the children's play is over,
Hushed their laughter's merry peal;
Then a host of tender memories
Through the distance softly steal.

With a rush of sudden longing
Comes a scene before my eyes-
Gleaming, glittering in the sunlight,
A broad stretch of ocean lies;
A long line of foam-touched billows
Break across the yellow sand,
While in sharp and stately outline
Sea-washed headlands nobly stand.

With a touch of ancient splendour
Stand the ruined castle walls,
And athwart the shattered gateway
A broad ray of sunlight falls;
O'er the rocky coves and inlets
A deep summer stillness lies;
From the steep cliff-sides rise echoes
Wakened by the sea-birds' cries.

Then I see the place by moonlight;
Music rises on the air,

And those dear, old, terraced gardens
Come before me broad and fair;
Midst the crowd are forms and faces
That I long for now in vain ;
Ah! my sea-side friends and comrades
Shall we ever meet again?

Crowding one upon the other,

Just as when I saw them last, Esplanade, cliffs, bridge, and gardens Loom from out the happy past. Friendly hands are stretched to greet me, Well-known voices strike my ear,

And for one brief joyous moment
I am almost with them there.

"Stay forever, fleeting vision;
Stay before my longing eyes!"
Yet e'en as the words are uttered
The fair picture fades and dies:
Those bright scenes all swiftly vanish
Like a leaf upon a stream,

And my outstretched hands grasp nothing
But a memory and a dream.

Nobody Knows.

WHEN Miss Elsie goes walking in search of wild flowers,
And comes back without them in two or three hours;
Did she find something better? each face clearly shows
The reply to this question is "Nobody knows.

When young Hudson calls on us and gives himself airs,
And drops half the teacups and falls over chairs;

No one knows when he tells us he's just come from Rome,
How we wish he had stopped there and never come home.
When dishes are broken, the cook blames the cat—
Now who in creation could contradict that?

And when cats meet policemen down area stairs,

No one knows that's a game in which two may go shares. When Dick scans his visage with stern looks and grave, And gets the impression he's needing a shave;

How they'll find out the spot where his moustachio grows,
Without a strong microscope, nobody knows.

When sour apples and gooseberries no more are seen,
And Master Ted's rosy face looks rather green;
A connection of facts might wonders disclose,
But no one connects them, so nobody knows.

When little Jack hides 'neath the broad window seat,
Just to see "the nice gentleman that brings sister sweets";
No one knows when she finds him why sister turns red
And tells nurse quite crossly "take that child to bed.'
There are some who search for the tune of the breeze,
And others who can't "see the wood for the trees";
But out of quite half the events that befall,
What we say we know least of, we know most of all.

A Rule for Life.

READING my inmost heart, what do I see?
The actions of to-day engraven there;
A memory that goes with me everywhere;
And dreams of future days-these are the three.

And which of these, oh! sages, can ye tell,
Shall hold the foremost place within my heart,
And so usurp the whole, yielding no part
To those two others that do inly dwell?

A hollow voice rolls down the ranks of Time,
"Cherish the first thy memories of the Past;
Gather those records grey and hold them fast;
So thy life's bells shall ring their sweetest chime."
A new voice breaks upon my listening ear-
"The Past is gone," it says, "so let it go;
And of the future who may say or know?"
Cling to the Present then and have no fear."
"Not so," the Future cries; "spend not thy days,
In waiting on to-day; stretch forth thy hands
To name and fame to come, and lordly lands;
So shalt thou earn from men their highest praise."
The voices die away, but all their words

I still hold in my heart and ponder there,
Until their hidden meaning, shining fair,
Guides my weak fingers to the sought-for chords.
At last I read aright-this is the key:-

Let all the three have place-so shall the Past Lend wisdom to the Present; and at last The Future's joy shall dawn eternally.

Two Castles.

ONCE on a time, in years gone by,
We played together, you and I;
We built a castle all of sand
Fit for a prince in Fairyland:

And we quite thought that it would last
Until the day was fully past.

The sea flowed onward in its might,
And swept our castle out of sight;
So when we came to it again
We searched for it, but all in vain ;
Despite of all the work we'd done
Towers, walls, and gardens all were gone.