BY C. F. HOFFMAN.
They are mockery all, those skies! those skies! Their untroubled depths of blue; They are mockery all, these eyes! these eyes! Which seem so warm and true; Each quiet star in the one that lies, Each meteor glance that at random flies The other's lashes through. They are mockery all, these flowers of Spring, Which her airs so softly woo; And the love to which we would madly cling, Ay! it is mockery too. For the winds are false which the perfume stir, And the lips deceive to which we sue, And love but leads to the sepulchre; Which flowers spring to strew.
THE CLOUDS.
BY JONATHAN LAWRENCE, JUN.
The clouds have their own language unto me They have told many a tale in by-gone days, At twilight's hour, when gentle reverie Steals o'er the heart, as tread the elfish fays With their fleet footsteps on the moonlit grass, And leave their storied circles where they pass.
So, even so, to me the embracing clouds, With their pure thoughts leave holy traces here; And from the tempest-gathered fold that shrouds The darkening earth, unto the blue, and clear, And sunny brightness of yon arching sky, They have their language and their melody.
Have you not felt it when the dropping rain From the soft showers of Spring hath clothed the earth With its unnumbered offspring? felt not when The conquering sun hath proudly struggled forth In misty radiance, until cloud and spot Were blended in one brightness? Can you not
Look out and love when the departing sun Enrobes their peaks in shapes fantastical In his last splendour, and reflects upon Their skirts his farewell smile ere shadows fall Above his burial, like our boyhood's gleams Of fading light, or like the "stuff of dreams?"
Or giving back those tints indefinite, Yet brightly blending, there to form that arch Whereon the angel-spirits of the light Marshalled their joyous and triumphant march, When sank the whelming waters, and again Left the green islands to the sons of men?