Ow do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, ELIZABETH Barrett Browning. 1 JELOVED, thou hast brought me many flowers Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine, Here's ivy !-take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine; And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine. ELIZABETH BARRETT Browning. a FI might choose, where my tired limbs shall lie crest Should rise above my grave-a little mound Raised in some cheerful village cemetery- Plant round the bright green grave those fragrant flowers, Pour his enchanted song-oh, softly tread, For sure, if aught of earth can sooth the dead, He still must love that pensive melody! TO THE BRITISH OAK. HEN, sacred plant, the Druid sage of old, The abode or emblem of Divinity, Methinks some vague prophetic vision rolled Haply e'en then, deep musing, he might see, Which sprung from thence in after times, and stood, Rejoicing in his might, on Ocean's flood, The guardian genius of Britannia's Isle ; At whose dread voice admiring nations bow, In duteous homage,-tyrants are laid lowAnd fierce Oppression's victims learn to smile. CHARLES CROCKER. OT war, nor hurrying troops from plain to plain, Nor deed of high resolve, nor stern command, Sing I; the brow that carries trace of pain Long and enough the sons of song have scann'd : Nor lady's love in honeysuckle bower, With helmet hanging by, in stolen ease; The fragments of God's image to restore, HENRY ALFORD. |