V.

ON A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR.

Ir lies before me there, and my own breath
Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside
The living head I stood in honored pride,
Talking of lovely things that conquer death.
Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath

Ran his fine fingers, when he leant, blank-eyed,
And saw, in fancy, Adam and his bride

With their rich locks, or his own Delphic wreath. There seems a love in hair, though it be dead. It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread Of our frail plant, a blossom from the tree Surviving the proud trunk ;- as though it said, In me

Patience and Gentleness is Power.

Behold affectionate eternity.

VI.

THE NILE.

Ir flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands, -

Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roamed through the young world, the glory ex

treme

Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.

VINCENT LEIGH HUNT.

THE DEFORMED CHILD.*

AN Angel prisoned in an infant frame
Of mortal sickness and deformity,

Looks patiently from out that languid eye

Matured, and seeming large with pain. The name
Of "happy childhood" mocks his movements tame,
So propped with piteous crutch, or forced to lie
Rather than sit, in his frail chair, and try
To taste the pleasure of the unshared game.
He does; and faintly claps his withered hands
To see how Brother Willie caught the ball;
Kind Brother Willie, strong, yet gentle all:

'T was he that placed him where his chair now stands In that warm corner, 'gainst the sunny wall.

God, in that brother, gave him more than lands.

* Vincent Leigh Hunt was the youngest son of Leigh Hunt, and inherited a large share of his father's poetical talents. He died when quite young. In a letter to me, Mr. Hunt thus speaks of him : "His whole life was full of sympathy. A sonnet like this will allow his father to indulge a hope, that, wherever any sonnets of his own may be thought worth collecting, they and it may never be parted." (S. Aa. L.)

LAMAN BLANCHARD.

I.

CREATIVENESS OF A LOVING EYE.

PLEASURES lie thickest where no pleasures seem :
There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy, of silence or of sound;
Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.
The very meanest things are made supreme
With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand
But moves a bright and million-peopled land,
And hath its Eden and its Eves, I deem.
For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye
Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things,
And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh,
Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings,

Delight, from many a nameless covert sly,

Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings.

II.

A WISH FOR THE UNFADINGNESS OF THE LOVING EYE.

GAYLY and greenly let my seasons run ;

And should the war-winds of the world uproot
The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit

Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun,

The dews be turned to ice, fair days begun

In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit
Despair and discord keep Hope's harp-strings mute,
Still let me live as love and life were one:
Still let me turn on earth a childlike gaze,

And trust the whispered charities that bring
Tidings of human truth; with inward praise.
Watch the weak motion of each common thing,
And find it glorious :- still let me raise
On wintry wrecks an altar to the spring.