In this step, even as in Forming Pictures, find the unity which will be one central feeling, often intense : aim to bring out this one feeling running throughout. For example: the twenty-third Psalm is a song of trust; the eighth Psalm is a profound study and contemplation of nature compared with man, adoring wonder; " Nightfall" has for its center the " memory of other days. Ones personality and the fervor of feeling manifested in rendering the Lyric Style is of far greater importance than the incidents mentioned in the poems. Sonnets are also personal and are rendered as directed for Lyrics.

Many of our Hymns and Sacred Songs are Lyrics and should be so rendered as to bring out the feeling under the lines. As a rule hymns are rendered thoughtlessly, in a monotonous ministerial tone," thus marring and ruining the beauty of the sweetest and most personal of all the songs of our language.

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In rendering the following subjective studies, while the action is concentric and somewhat stilled, aim not to have it the stillness of death but the stillness of life, intensity. This stillness of life may be likened to a buzz saw in such rapid motion that it seems positive repose; or to a spirited horse held in check; or to a deep stream flowing silently. The shallow stream broken up into ripples makes noise. To render the profound, sacred, personal feelings of the Lyric in a noisy declamatory style is closely akin to profanity. Here, as in no other style, there should be appreciation and intensity for it is " from an abundance of life comes sweetness.

NIGHTFALL.

Alone I stand,

On either hand

In gathering gloom stretch sea and land; Beneath my feet,

With ceaseless beat,

The waters murmur low and sweet.

Slow falls the night:

The tender light

Of stars grows brighter and more bright, The lingering ray

I watch it gain

The heavenly plain;

Behind it trails a starry train

While low and sweet

The wavelets beat

Their murmuring music at my feet.

Fair night of June!

Yon silver moon

Gleams pale and still. The tender tune,
Faint-floating, plays,

In moonlit lays,

A melody of other days.

'Tis sacred ground;

A peace profound

Comes o'er my soul. I hear no sound,
Save at my feet

There was once a boat on a billow:

Lightly she rocked to her port remote,

And the foam was white in her wake like snow,

And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow, And bent like a wand of willow.

I shaded my eyes one day when a boat
Went curtseying over the billow,

I marked her course till a dancing mote

She faded out on the moonlit foam,
And I stayed behind in the dear loved home;
And my thoughts all day were about the boat
And my dreams upon the pillow.

I pray you hear my song of a boat,
For it is but short:-

My boat, you shall find none fairer afloat,
In river or port.

Long I looked out for the lad she bore,
On the open desolate sea,

And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore,
For he came not back to me -

There was once a nest in a hollow:

Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed,
Soft and warm, and full to the brim—
Vetches leaned over it purple and dim,
With buttercup buds to follow.

I pray you hear my song of a nest,
For it is not long:-

You shall never light, in a summer quest
The bushes among -

Shall never light on a prouder sitter,

A fairer nestful, nor ever know
A softer sound than their tender twitter,
That wind-like did come and go.

I had a nestful once of my own,

Ah happy, happy 1!

Right dearly I loved them: but when they were grown They spread out their wings to fly

O, one after one they flew away

Far up to the heavenly blue,

To the better country, the upper day,

Ι

pray you, what is the nest to me,
My empty nest?

And what is the shore where I stood to see
My boat sail down to the west?

Can I call that home where I anchor yet,
Though my good man has sailed?
Can I call that home where my nest was set,
Now all its hope hath failed?

Nay, but the port where my sailor went,

And the land where my nestlings be: There is the home where my thoughts are sent, The only home for me—

"SONGS OF SEVEN. "

Ah me!

JEAN INGELOW.

SONG OF THE MYSTIC.

I walk down the Valley of Silence-
Down the dim, voiceless valley- alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices

Whose music my heart could not win;

Long ago was I weary of noises

That fretted my soul with their din;