Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew-
And just because I was thrice as old,

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals, nought beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love,-
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few-
Much is to learn and much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come,-at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and

gay? Why your hair was amber I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium's redAnd what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed, or itself missed meAnd I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;

My heart seemed full as it could hold

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold.

So, hush,-I will give you this leaf to keep

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.

There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

THE OLD YEAR'S DEATH.

BY MARY C. F. MONCK.

THE night was wailing, like a widowed queen,
Her purple garments changed for mourning weeds,
Her crown of stars torn from her dusky brow,
Yet proud in all her bitter agony.
Wild bursts of sorrow filled the wintry air,
And died away to moans and sobbing sighs,
Then sunk to silence, but to wake again,
Deeper and sadder, rushing through the pines
That bristled on the dark and distant hills,
Which like grim sentinels kept watch and ward
Above the dreary shore of the dark sea,
Where the Old Year had laid him down to die.
The waves had swallowed up the narrow path
By which the poor old king had reached the spot
Where life and power should pass from him away:
And still the waters lapped with eager tongues
The little space which yet remained to him,
Awaiting his last breath, to overwhelm
All trace of him and his, ere they retired
And left a fair untrodden way to greet
The footsteps of a monarch yet unborn.
One grey cloud covered all the brooding sky,
Save where the waning moon lay in the midst―
As lies a dead face in its burial shroud-

Ghastly and wan, and cold and passionless;
And the dim sea, heaving in long, low waves,
Looked up to her, with a complaining cry
Of torment rising from its writhing depths.

From leafless woods, far off, came shrieks and groans,
As the winds harped upon the naked boughs
A sad and mournful dirge. Across the moor,
Over the black reed-bordered pools and tarns,
The blasted waste of brown and rustling heath,
The windy hill-tops, and the desolate shore,
Rolled the wild requiem, and brought with it
The toll of the far city's minster bell,
Solemnly, faintly sounding through the mist:
A muffled knell which warned the dying king
That but one hour-one short, one fleeting hour-
Lay between him and all eternity.

There was a faithful watcher at his side

One true to death. She held his icy hand,

Pillowed his white head on her filial breast,
Dropped her cold tears upon his upturned face,
And watched the passing of the failing life
With which her own should end.

She was the last

Of all the brave, and bold, and hopeful throng,
The last of all the bright and beautiful
Whom in the flush of proud and vigorous youth
That poor old man had seen around him fall,
The daughter of his age, his youngest born.

She had come forth this night from many a home

Where fair young hands had crowned her with green wreaths,
And loving hearts and lips besought her stay,

And mourned for her departure. She had come
Though great fires heaped with red and crackling logs
Had been piled up to warm her frozen limbs,

Though feasts were spread, and rich wines poured for her,
And love and mirth and youth together met

In the swift circles of the merry dance.

She had left homes where lonely mourners wept
For those who but a little year before

Had been the gayest of the gay and glad,

And now lay sleeping through the long, long night,
Which knows no morn on earth. She would not stay

To comfort the afflicted, nor to breathe

Hope to the hearts whose loved ones were away
'Mid death and danger. No, she left them all,
To soothe the death-bed of her failing sire,
And die with him.

He blessed her as he lay,
And wept for all the precious months and days
Squandered and slighted, lost for evermore.

"My child," he said, "the midnight hour is near,
And the first gleam of the to-morrow's dawn
Shall shine upon our graves. Alas! alas!
I thought my summer days would never end,
My summer flowers never fade away.

I recked not of this last, this fearful hour,

Or the dread world beyond the sea of death,

When suns were bright, and every hour that sped
Brought some new jewel to my diadem.

Oh! for the days which are for ever lost!

Like argosies laden with priceless gems,

Which never reach the shore for which they sail,
But sink in the deep ocean.

Lost! lost! lost!

Oh! for another grant of life and strength!
Time for repentance of my wasted gifts—

Another hand shall take my sceptre up,
Another head shall wear the crown I leave,
Another fill the throne that once was mine,
Like me, perhaps, to reign in thoughtless joy,
Nor dream of the 'to come' till all too late.
I have rejoiced above red battle-fields,
Where thousands fell to die. And the loud din
Of thundering cannon and of flashing steel,
The cries of those in the death agony,

The maddened neighing of the wounded steeds,
Have made me tremble with a fierce delight.
I have made helpless children fatherless,
Mothers bereaved, wives widows. I have rent
The brother from his sister's lingering clasp,
The lover from his fond and gentle love,
And sent them forth, to come no more again.
The blood of noble hearts has dyed my robes
With glowing crimson. Yet have I rejoiced,
And joined my voice to the loud rabble-cry
Which welcomed victories, won with the cost
Of untold lives, and tears but death can dry.
I had no sorrow for the early dead,

Or those who lived to mourn them.

But too late

I know the better from the worse, and feel
How deeply I have sinned. My days are done-
A darkness deeper than the gloomy night

Is closing round me-I no longer feel
The gentle pressure of thy duteous hand."

He spoke no more. Then rose a thrilling cry
Through all the realms of air; there was a rush
Of spirit wings upon the dreary blast-

A plaint of spirit voices low and sad;

The clouds closed round the moon, and darkness fell,

Utter and rayless, over all the earth,

And the waves rose and swept away the dead.

HOW WE WENT TO SEE THE MILITIA REVIEW.

THIS was after the fashion of it. Our cousin, Symthe de Symthe, having been a good sober country gentleman for the space of at least a dozen years, got at last wearied of "improvements on the farm," in the shape of lopped, distorted trees, and grounds painfully harrowed up on the score of production, and determined that in the present "crisis" it was the duty of every true Briton to serve his country, and therefore he should take up service in the militia. It was wonderfully becoming to him, as we all told him, the uniform; and as for the "undress," with that dear duck of a foraging-cap, and those lovely moustaches, why we never knew before how handsome he was. Then he was so clever about getting his men into training, and whatever the "real army" (as those impertinent officers at the barracks called themselves) might choose to say about "playing at soldiering," it was plain to see our cousin Symthe de Symthe night have been used to it all his life. He took such great delight in it also. He was never wearied of getting up parties of gay ladies and gentlemen to visit him at his "quarters" and partake of the charming champagne breakfasts he and his "brother-officers" were de-, lighted to provide for them. He would take them afterwards down long dirty passages into the "men's quarters," and expatiate with delight over boiling messes of dingy potatoes and steaming questionable-looking meat. All the men touched their hats to him, like a real soldier as he was, and he would say, "I hope, my men, that you like your fare, and that you have no complaints to make?" just as if he had always lived amongst them. It was astonishing how we got ourselves up when we

attended these demonstrations of our cousin's. We cased our children in scarlet cloth, or leggings, or comforters, or something that looked military, and we put feather streamers in our bonnets, and walked to the sound of the drum, and looked like the real cousins of a real soldier, as indeed we were. It was very disgusting, though, when the drafts for the Crimea called so many of the militia out of England to fill up the different foreign stations left vacant by the Queen's regiments abroad; and, worse still, the craven spirit that showed itself amongst the militia when they were informed that those who had enlisted under the idea they would not be called out of England, would be allowed to retire before the new act of foreign service came into force. Half of my cousin's regiment was cleared in a morning. It was in vain that he apostrophised them as "sons of England, and defenders of her soil," and spoke of "leading them to glory," and "wreathing their brows with laurels"-(I do not know where he intended to procure them from in the dirty foreign quarters in which they were to be billeted)-they were low and degraded enough to prefer their wives and sweethearts to all the glory he could offer them, and were actually seen drivelling on parade under a mystical impression they had imbibed from his speech to them, that they were to be torn from the bosoms of their families, and offered as bleeding sacrifices on the altar of their country. It was just at this period that we visited the town in which our cousin's regiment was quartered, and in an unhappy moment asked him to give us one of his beautiful military reviews before he left England. Always too gallant to refuse, he fixed an early day for us, and Mrs. Delorme, at whose hospitable house we were staying, insisted upon having her beautiful bays