LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOLUME XVIII.

PAGE

London

Rev. H. R. Haweis

Westminster Abbey

"Aulestad," the Home of Björnstjerne Björnson in Norway

Bingen on the Rhine.

Frontispiece

8319

8355

8370

8378

The Home of George Meredith, Flint Cottage and "The Chalet," Box

THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY

OF

FAMOUS LITERATURE.

SONNETS.

BY RICHARD GARNETT.

(For biographical note, see Vol. XIV., page 6755.)

TO AMERICA, AFTER READING SOME UNGENEROUS
CRITICISMS.

WHAT though thy Muse the singer's art essay,
With lip now over-loud, now over-low ?
'Tis but the augury that makes her so

Of the high things she hath in charge to say.
How shall the giantess of gold and clay,

Girt with two oceans, crowned with Arctic snow,
Sandalled with shining seas of Mexico,

Be pared to trim proportion in a day?

Thou art too great! Thy million-billowed surge
Of life bewilders speech, as shoreless sea
Confounds the ranging eye from verge to verge
With mazy strife or smooth immensity.
Not soon or easily shall thence emerge
A Homer or a Shakespeare worthy thee.

BISMARCK AND MOLTKE.

FIRE falters yet in the fatiguèd eyes;

And now the slow blood stirs with sudden leap,
And angry thunder daunts the spies that peep,
Exploring if the Lion lives or dies.

But cold upon the sand his fellow lies,

The far-flung shadow of whose dawnless sleep
The many-nationed world doth overcreep;
Not solely where Rhine's torrent seaward hies.