A maiden knight—­to me is given
      Such hope, I know not fear;
    I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
      That often meet me here. 
    I muse on joy that will not cease,
      Pure spaces cloth’d in living beams,
    Pure lilies of eternal peace,
      Whose odours haunt my dreams;
    And, stricken by an angel’s hand,
      This mortal armour that I wear,
    This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
      Are touch’d, are turn’d to finest air.

    The clouds are broken in the sky,
      And thro’ the mountain-walls
    A rolling organ-harmony
      Swells up, and shakes and falls. 
    Then move the trees, the copses nod,
      Wings flutter, voices hover clear: 
   “O just and faithful knight of God! 
      Ride on! the prize is near.” 
    So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
      By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
    All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide,
      Until I find the holy Grail.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

 A NAME IN THE SAND.

“A Name in the Sand,” by Hannah Flagg Gould (1789-1865), is a poem to correct our ready overestimate of our own importance.

    Alone I walked the ocean strand;
    A pearly shell was in my hand: 
    I stooped and wrote upon the sand
      My name—­the year—­the day. 
    As onward from the spot I passed,
    One lingering look behind I cast;
    A wave came rolling high and fast,
      And washed my lines away.

    And so, methought, ’twill shortly be
    With every mark on earth from me: 
    A wave of dark oblivion’s sea
      Will sweep across the place
    Where I have trod the sandy shore
    Of time, and been, to be no more,
    Of me—­my day—­the name I bore,
      To leave nor track nor trace.

    And yet, with Him who counts the sands
    And holds the waters in His hands,
    I know a lasting record stands
      Inscribed against my name,
    Of all this mortal part has wrought,
    Of all this thinking soul has thought,
    And from these fleeting moments caught
      For glory or for shame.

HANNAH FLAGG GOULD.

 [Illustration]

PART VI.

       “Grow old along with me! 
        The best is yet to be,—­
    The last of life, for which the first was made.”

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

“The Voice of Spring,” by Felicia Hemans (1749-1835), becomes attractive as years go on.  The line in this poem that captivated my youthful fancy was: 

“The larch has hung all his tassels forth,”