J'ai trop parcouru de chemin
Sans atteindre l'enchanteresse;
Toujours vers cet ancien désir
J'ai tendu comme l'hirondelle,
Mais sans le secours du zéphir
Qui la porte où son cœur l'appelle.
Adieu, fantôme souriant,
Vers qui la jeunesse s'élance,
La raison me crie en passant;
Le souvenir vaut l'espérance.

TRANSLATION.

When Hope, a fugitive, retreating
Elbows us, as away she flies,
Then swift returns, another greeting
To offer us with laughing eyes.

Man goeth when his heart is speaking,
The swallows through the zephyrs dart,
And man, who's every fancy seeking,
Hath yet a more inconstant heart.
Enchantress, fugitive, coquetting!
Know'st thou then true, alone, thy way?
Hath then stern Fate, so old and gray,
So young a mistress never fretting?

REVERSED RHYMES.

To sing the mistress, never fretting,
Musset gives Fate, so old and gray,
Too long I've travelled on my way,
And ne'er attained her dear coquetting.
To find that longing of the heart,
I've been, like yonder swallow, seeking,
Yet could not through the zephyrs dart,
Nor reach the wish the heart is speaking.

Adieu then, shade, with laughing eyes,

Towards whom youth ever sends its greeting;
Better, cries Reason, as she flies,

Remembrance now, than Hope retreating.

Among the eccentricities of literature may be classed Rhopalic verses, which begin with a monosyllable and gradually increase the length of each successive word. The name was suggested by the shape of Hercules' club, póralov. Sometimes they run from the butt to the handle of the club. Take as an example of each,

Rem tibi confeci, doctissime, dulcisonoram.
Vectigalibus armamenta referre jubet Rex.

Emblematic Poetry.

A pair of scissors and a comb in verse.-BEN JONSON.

On their fair standards by the wind displayed,

Eggs, altars, wings, pipes, axes, were portrayed.-Scribleriad.

THE quaint conceit of making verses assume grotesque shapes and devices, expressive of the theme selected by the writer, appears to have been most fashionable during the seventeenth century. Writers tortured their brains in order to torture their verses into all sorts of fantastic forms, from a flowerpot to an obelisk, from a pin to a pyramid. Hearts and fans and knots were chosen for love-songs; wineglasses, bottles, and casks for Bacchanalian songs; pulpits, altars, and monuments for religious verses and epitaphs. Tom Nash, according to Disraeli, says of Gabriel Harvey, that "he had writ verses in all kinds in form of a pair of gloves, a pair of spectacles, a pair of pot-hooks, &c." Puttenham, in his Art of Poesie, gives several odd specimens of poems in the form of lozenges, pillars, triangles, &c. Butler says of Benlowes, "the excellently learned," who was much renowned for his literary freaks, "As for temples and pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way; for he has made a grid-iron and a frying-pan in verse, that, besides the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the words did perfectly represent the noise made by these utensils! When he was a captain, he made all the furniture of his horse, from the bit to the crupper, the beaten poetry, every verse being fitted to the proportion of the thing, with a moral allusion to the sense of the thing: as the bridle of moderation, the saddle of content, and the crupper of constancy; so that the same thing was the epigram and emblem, even as a mule is both horse and ass." Mr. Alger tells us that the Oriental poets are fond of arranging their poems in the form of drums, swords, circles, crescents, trees, &c., and that the Alexandrian rhetoricians used to amuse themselves by writing their satires and invectives in the shape of an axe or a

spear. He gives the following erotic triplet, composed by a Hindu poet, the first line representing a bow, the second its string, the third an arrow aimed at the heart of the object of his passion:

to pierce, like fire, thy too reluctant heart.

lovely maid, thou art the fairest slave in all God's mart!

One kiss I send,

Those charms to win, with all my empire I would gladly part.

The following specimen of this affectation was written by George Wither, who lived from 1588 to 1677. It is called by Mr. Ellis a

RHOMBOIDAL DIRGE.

Farewell,

Sweet groves, to you!

You hills that highest dwell,

And all you humble vales, adieu!

You wanton brooks and solitary rocks,

My dear companions all, and you my tender flocks!

Farewell, my pipe! and all those pleasing songs whose moving strains Delighted once the fairest nymphs that dance upon the plains. You discontents, whose deep and over-deadly smart

Have without pity broke the truest heart,

Sighs, tears, and every sad annoy,

That erst did with me dwell,

And others joy,

Farewell!

The Christian monks of the Middle Ages, who amused them. selves similarly, preferred for their hymns the form of

THE CROSS.

Blest they who seek,
While in their youth,
With spirit meck,
The way of truth.

To them the Sacred Scriptures now display,
Christ as the only true and living way:
His precious blood on Calvary was given
To make them heirs of endless bliss in heaven.
And e'en on earth the child of God can trace
The glorious blessings of his Saviour's face.
For them He bore
His

Now look

And trust on

Father's frown,
For them He wore
The thorny crown;
Nailed to the cross,
Endured its pain,
That his life's loss
Might be their gain.
Then haste to choose
That better part-
Nor dare refuse
The Lord your heart,
Lest He declare,-
"I know you not;"
And deep despair
Shall be your lot.

to Jesus who on Calvary died,
Him alone who there was crucified.

5

A CURIOUS PIECE OF ANTIQUITY, ON THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR SAVIOUR AND THE TWO THIEVES.

The middle cross represents our Saviour; those on either side, the two thieves. On the top and down the middle cross are our Saviour's expression, "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?" and on the top of the cross is the Latin inscription, "INRI"-Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judæorum, .e. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Upon the cross on the right hand s the prayer of one of the thieves :-"Lord! remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." On the left-hand cross is the saying, or reproach, of the other:-"If thou beest the Christ, save thyself and us." The whole, comprised together, makes a piece of excellent poetry, which is to be read across all the columns, and makes as many lines as there are letters in the alphabet. It is perhaps one of the most curious pieces of composition to be found on record.