ITS POWER IN DIVERSE MINDES. Wonder it is to see in diverse mindes

How diversly Love doth his pageaunts play, And shewes his powre in variable kindes : The baser wit, whose ydle thoughts alway Are wont to cleave unto the lowly clay, It stirreth up to sensuall desire,

And in lewd slouth to wast his carelesse day;

But in brave sprite it kindles goodly fire, That to all high desert and honour doth aspire. Spenser.

WOMAN NOT LOVED FOR HER

UNDERSTANDING.

We love a girl for very different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding. Her mind we esteem (if it is brilliant), and it may greatly elevate her in our opinion; nay more, it may enchain us when we already love. But her understanding is not that which awakens and inflames our passions. Goethe.

NO BREATH, NO BEING, BUT IN THE BELOVED.

To his eye There was but one belovèd face on earth, And that was shining on him; he had lool:'d Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers,
Which colour'd all his objects ;-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously.

Byron.

SOVERAINE POWRE OF LOVE.

Ye gentle ladies! in whose soveraine powre Love hath the glory of his kingdom left, And th' hearts of men, as your eternall dowre,

In yron chaines of liberty bereft,

Deliver'd hath unto your hands by gift, Be well aware how ye the same doe use, That pride doe not to tyranny you lift; Least if men you of cruelty accuse, He from you take that chiefdome which ye doe abuse. Spenser.

LOVE PUREST IN AFTER LIFE.

They err, who deem love's brightest hour in blooming youth has flown:

Its purest, tenderest, holiest power in afterlife is known,

When passions, chasten'd and subdued, to riper years are given,

And earth and earthly things are view'd in light that breaks from heaven. Bernard Barton.

DISSEMBLED LOVE.

I cannot love; to counterfeit is base,
And cruel too; dissembled love is like
The poison of perfumes, a killing sweetness.
Sewell.

LOVE, A MYSTERIOUS POWER. Love's not the effect of reason, or of will. Few feel that passion's force because they choose it,

And fewer yet, when it becomes their duty. Eliz. Haywood.

THE PRAYER OF EARTHLY LOVE.

UNSEEN she pray'd

With all the still, small whispers of the night,
And with the searching glances of the stars,
And with her God alone. She lifted up
Her sad, sweet voice, while trembling o'er
her head

The dark leaves thrill'd with prayer--the tearful prayer

Of woman's quenchless yet repentant love:-"Father of spirits, hear!

Look on the inmost soul to Thee reveal'd, Look on the fountain of the burning tear, Before thy sight in solitude unseal'd!

Hear, Father! hear and aid!

If I have loved too well, if I have shed, In my vain fondness, o'er a mortal head Gifts, in thy shrine, my God, more fitly laid; "If I have sought to live

But in one light, and made a mortal eye The lonely star of my idolatry; Thou, that art Love, oh! pity and forgive! "Chasten'd and school'd at last,

No more my struggling spirit burns; But fix'd on Thee, from that vain worship turns!

What have I said? the deep dream is not past.

"Yet hear! If still I love,

Oh still too fondly-if for ever seen An earthly image comes my soul between, And thy calm glory, Father, throned above; "If still a voice is near,

(Even while I strive these wanderings to control.)

An earthly voice, disquieting my soul With its deep music, too intensely dear;

"O Father, draw to Thee

My lost affections back; the dreaming eye Clear from the mist, sustain the heart that dies;

Give the worn soul once more its pinions free. "I must love on, O God!

This bosom must love on! but let thy breath

Touch and make pure the flame that knows not death,

Bearing it up to heaven-Love's own abode !"

Mrs. Hemans.

A LOVER'S MORNING GREETING.

The morning is breaking,
The skylark awaking,

The bright dews are shaking
From blade and from bush;
The light mists are failing,
O'er meadows exhaling,
And yonder star paling

At dawn's rosy flush:
In warmth and dew seething,
The rich earth is breathing,
And moist flowers are wreathing
Gay garlands for thee :
Hark! hear'st thou not ringing
The wild wood with singing,
When glad birds are springing

From bank and from tree!
With summer's air blending,
Thy casement ascending,
Sweet woodbines are lending
Their soft call to mine :
O dearest, awake thee!
I wait but to take thee,
Where all things shall make thee
A banquet and shrine.

Then, every sense filling
With ecstasies thrilling,
Earth's feast may be willing
To hold us in thrall;
But spirits adoring

The hand that's outpouring,
Soon, soon will be soaring

To Him that gives all.
Anna Maria Porter.

THE MARTYRDOM OF LOVE.

O happy persecution, I embrace thee
With an unfetter'd soul; so sweet a thing
It is to sigh upon the rack of love,
Where each calamity is groaning witness
Of the poor martyr's faith. I never heard
Of any true affection but 'twas nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the¦

rose.

Love, bred on earth, is often nursed in hell; By rote it reads woe ere it learn to spell.

Middleton.

TRUE LOVE NOT TO BE SLIGHTED. Blunt not his love; Nor lose the good advantage of his grace, By seeming cold, or careless of his will.

Shakespeare.

GLADDENS MORTAL LIFE.

Love comes divinely, gladdening mortal life, As sunrise dawns upon the gaze of one Bewilder'd in some outland waste, and lost. Thomas Woolner.

LOVE'S FANTASIES.

He that truly loves,

Burns out the day in idle fantasies ;
And when the lamb, bleating, doth bid good
night

Unto the closing day, then tears begin
To keep quick time unto the owl, whose voice
Shrieks like the bellman in the lover's ear.
Love's eye the jewel of sleep, oh, seldom
wears!

The early lark is waken'd from her bed,
Being only by love's pains disquieted;
But, singing in the morning's ear, she weeps,
Being deep in love, at lovers' broken sle ps:
But say, a golden slumber chance to tie,
With silken strings, the cover of love's eye,
Then dreams, magician-like, mocking present
Pleasures, whose fading leaves more dis-
Middleton.

content.

CASTLES IN THE AIR.

A palace lifting to eternal summer
Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
Of coolest foliage musical with birds,
Whose songs should syllable thy name!

at noon

We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder

Why earth, could be unhappy, while the heaven

Still left us youth and love; we'd have no friends

That were not lovers; no ambition, save
To excel them all in love; we'd read no books
That were not tales of love-that we might
smile

To think how poorly eloquence of words
Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!
And when night came, amidst the breathless

heavens

We'd guess what star should be our home

when love

Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,
And every air was heavy with the sighs
Of orange groves and music from sweet lutes,
And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth
I' the midst of roses! Dost thou like the
picture?
Lord Lytton.