Musical notes from harps of gold,
In this cold, old critical world of ours.
Yet this is a jolly old world of ours,
And mirth gives wings to its flying hours,
While farce laughs aloud in its glee.
On the dance-floor with jubilant feet
Pleasure pursues the eluding cheat,-
A phantom ethereal, frail and fleet.
How can we solve the mystery
Of life in this jolly old world of ours?
This is a brave old world of ours;

Its shafts have fallen like rain in showers;
Its bullets and cannon-balls like hail.
Its blood has flowed in rivers of red;
It has quaked beneath the hostile tread
Of armies numbered with nations' dead.
Yet it wears a sword and a coat of mail,—
This combative old world of ours.

This is a practical world of ours;
It prefers fruit to leaves and flowers.
Rhetorical speech and eloquence
And poetry may be well enough,
It prizes more substantial stuff,
And nuggets of gold, though in the rough.
Genius must yield to common sense

In this practical world of ours.

This is a very old world of ours,-
Its pyramids, temples, tombs, and towers;
Its cities in ruins deep under ground;
Its tablets and parchments and records old;
Its jewels and silver and bronze and gold;
Its mummies wrapped in many a fold-
Speak of its age in types profound,
In this very old world of ours.

This is a fine old world of ours;

Its church-bells ring in ten thousand towers.
Its blessings are like the ocean's flow.
Charity stands at the Christian's door
With a cap and a crust to aid the poor.
Learning delights to impart its lore,

And Love would make it a heaven below,This brave and dear old world of ours.

THE FOUR KNIGHTS.-ROBERT C. V. MEYERS.

Written Expressly for this Collection.

Out of Flanders did we ride,

Max, Karl, Malcolm, and I,
Four knights of prowess side by side,
Bound for the sea-country.

The tangle in the brake and dell
Was dripping with the dew,

A little bird woke up to tell

What the dawn wandered through.

A dozen black trees before us launched,
Like a dozen apostles of old;

Peter, we called the one crooked-branched,
And Judas, the one tipped with gold.

And so we laughed, though we looked to our spears,
While our eyes were rusted with ire,
For last night's toast still rang in our ears,
And scorched our four souls like fire.

And so we jabbered and spurred and laughed,
Max, Karl, Malcolm, and I,

As the sun came up, a red mouth that quaffed
The four midges riding by-

As the day awoke and glittered and ran

In silver needles of light

Which sewed last night's stars down to earth, where man

Called them daisies and lilies white.

Out of Flanders, on we crept,

Our faces grown wan as the spray;

We laughed no more when a great gull swept

Like a thought through the air and away;

For we were nearing the sea, the sea;
Last night's toast rang out plain-·
"Here's to the love of the sweet lady
I go to bring home again!"

Max and Karl, Malcolm and I,

We loved her, and her alone;

I hated the three who loved my lady,

They hated me, every one.

Aye, we hated, and aye, we were there,

The elements stronger than noneFire and water and earth and air,

Which was the greater one?

Hist! What was that plunge at my side, at my back,

That rattle and swift sun-glance?

Max and Karl were at bay, alack!
Each poised his glistening lance-

Each poised his glistening lance, “Ye lie
Who say she belongs to ye;

The lady is mine, and so will I die

For my right, for my right, know ye!"

We fought and we lunged, and the gull flew near

And fluttered and blurred the sun;

We fought with our love, with our hope, with our fear, As though we should never have done.

We fought and we lunged till, spent and dree,

Malcolm and I were left,

Malcolm and I, and all bloody

Each spear was to the heft.

Malcolm and I! And dared there be

Just two where there had been four?

I loved, and I loved the fair lady,

I could no less nor more.

Quoth Malcolm, "And ye give up the dame,
And wend back to Flanders town,

I'll spare ye both a body and name,
For the lady is my own!"

And I, "The world is not wide at all,
If it holds thee and me the same;

The lady I love I must love till I fall

Through the limitless world ghosts claim!

We fought and we lunged, and the gull flew near,

And fluttered and blurred the sun;

We fought with our love, with our hope, with our fear,
As though we should never have done.

We fought and we lunged, and his steed was down,
His spear he no longer bare,

And then-why then I was all alone,

And the gull shrieked through the air.

I spurred at the flank of my reeking beast,
My glee like a pulse beat fast;

The trees were gibing ghosts from a feast
And, drunken, staggered past.

I spurred at the flank of my beast,-"Mine, mine
Is the lady, and mine alone,

In diamonds and rubies she shall shine,
My beautiful, beautiful one.

"She shall crown me her hero knight,
And she shall love me and slake

This day's hot crime that wounds God's sight,The crime that was for her sake.

"She shall love me, and love me I know,

And the three knights I loved so well

Shall not whisper, 'Thou,' and 'Thou,' and 'Thou,' And point to the gate of hell.

"For love is worth the all of life,

And death is conquered in love,
And sin and all the wages of strife-
Is it not said so from above?

"But lady, my lady, my own lady,
Let life and death fare as they will,
So thou art mine and royally

Rulest my thought and my will."

I spurred at the flank of my beast,-fast! fast!
Past valley and cliff madly,

And down at my feet at last-at last,
Churned the froth of the sea.

And the white gull reeled above my head
Like a thought that was held in chain,
Like a helpless soul of the newly dead
Caught in the meshes of pain.

"Sailor-men, sailor-men, stop me not now,
Pause not ye in my path;

A man in love is naught, I trow-
Make way for a man in wrath!"

The sailor-men they bore a load,

And the priest strode with bare head, And they called to me as on they strode, "Make way, make way for the dead!"

"What are the dead to me, sailor-men?—
Priest, what are the dead to me?

Make way for the living! I go, sailor-men,
To meet my own love-lady!"

The priest, he lifted the pall of white,
Soft plumes, and the misty lace-
And like a drowned world of light
I saw my lady's face.

HANNIBAL ON THE ALPS.-E. M. SWAN.

The snow-capped summits of the Alps were darkened with the legions of Carthage; their almost inaccessible heights had been scaled, and the bulk of Hannibal's army now clung about their ragged peaks and icy crags; while far below, still lingering in the dangerous passes, toiled the beast of burden and the last remnant of the troops.

The sun appearing in the orient, shot his earliest rays from amidst the crimson clouds that lingered about the horizon; his bright beams silvered the snowy brow of Mont Blanc, glanced with a dazzling beauty from Alpine glaciers, and fringed with prismatic hues the distant cliffs of Helvetia.

A wild shout of joy arose from the weary throng as they beheld the lovely vales and luxuriant plains of Italia. The air still vibrated with the faint echoes of the dying sound, as a suppressed cry of "Hannibal” flashed along the lines, mingled with a murmur of applause, at sight of their beloved leader, which was gradually hushed into the deepest silence, as the Carthaginian chieftain, waving his gleaming sword from a lofty peak, thus addressed them:

Why pause ye here? After all that you have endured, all the conquests you have won, do your hearts now grow faint in the very moment of victory?

A few days since we paused at the foot of the Alps, in the deep valley behind you; those rocky barriers.

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