shuddering at him; he, in the pride of his shallow
civilisation, is laughing or shuddering at
me.

                     VIOLETS.

WHEN first I pluck'd the violet
   It was a sunny day in March,
White clouds like frosted silver met
   The azure of the boundless arch;
The fresh rills danced, the blithe birds sung,
   So did my heart; for I was young.

Thenceforth its very name could fill
   My childish mind with golden beams,
With leaf-buds on a wooded hill,
   And dazzling clouds, and glitt'ring streams,
With all the sounds and feelings gay
   Of that bright breezy holiday.

But I grew up to toilsome hours,
   In a dim city closely pent,
Then, through the spring, my fav'rite flowers
   My mother in her letters sent:
And so sweet thoughts of her and home
   Would with their fragrance only come.

Until, at last, with other sweets,
   It gather'd round the precious name
Of one who brought me violets;
   So oft, glad evenings when he came
Their scent to me his presence bore,
   Before my hand could ope the door.

Thence their rich breathing spake alone
   Of hope and tenderness and truth;
Six waiting years had come and gone,
   And we had pass'd our early youth,
Ere Poverty, a captive led,
   Knelt down to Love, and we were wed.

He brought me to his cottage fair:
   Our wedding-day, brings spring again:
A golden joy is in the air,
   Each waving branch new welcomes rain,
And early flowers our garden round
   Murmur soft blessings from the ground.

We climb the hill behind the house,
   To show me where the violets grew;
Each tiny stem seem tremulous
   With blissful thoughts both old and new.
We are so happy there alone,
   Feeling, at last, each other's own.

So clung about our happiness
   Those wild-flowers seem'd, that when our boy
Was born, around his christening dress
   I wove them; so a sacred joy
Mingled amid the spirit wreath
   That flutter'd to their lightest breath.

My child! I see him plainly now
   As any time his eight bright years.
His the soft eyes, the changeful glow,
   Too delicate for this world's tears;
And so perhaps the angels knew:
   Alas! they gather blossoms too.

One morn I watch'd him out of sight,
   Nodding to me his pretty head;
He went for violets up the height,
  Neath a steep cliff we found him dead.
For me he'd climbed its side to cull
   The flowers of which his hands were full.

I drew them from those fingers small:
   Ah! then upon our fav'rites fell
The sombre shadow of the pall.
   I could not bear their sight or smell;
The passion of a mighty grief
   Was written on each purple leaf.

I learn'd, within a few more years,
   To dread the time of violets;
For its keen breath woke shudd'ring fears
   That darken'd o'er the old regrets.
Of all I loved the last the best
   Was passing slowly to his rest.

Veiling the grave with hopes so fair,
   That when that gentle husband died,
I could believe his love and care
   Lived round me still intensified.
Heaven open'd o'er that long decay,
   And then I saw how near it lay.

The violets of our courting-time
   I placed upon his shrouded heart,
The while I bless'd thee, Faith sublime,
   Strong and far-reaching as thou art!
Those dry leaves linking by thy spell
   To amaranth and asphodel.

And looking back, and looking round,
   I know no life so fair as mine:
Therein such depths of joy abound,
   Beauty and love so round it shine,
That depths of trouble too were given,
   Or else I had not valued Heaven.

And my heart feels it strange relief
   To have its old love-struggle done
'Twixt child and husband with this grief
   The horror from the violets gone,
Now Immortality hath kiss'd
   Each leaf of fragrant amethyst.

And round their graves have violets sprung
   Yes, I can tend them, for I know
Each feeling 'mid their blossoms hung
   Shall live again, except the woe;
And in that glad assurance blest,
   I wait my entering into rest.

      LAUGHING PHILOSOPHERS.

LAUGHING philosophers are of quite as
old a family as their weeping rivals. We
trace their lineage, in unbroken succession,
from their representatives in our own
day to that far off period when, under
the radiant skies of Attica, the Parthenon
rose; when Phidias revealed to the
light-hearted Athenian the mystery of form;
when Sophocles sang the old song of
Love, love, invincible love; when Socrates
taught wisdom to Phaedrius under the
plane-tree, while the grasshoppers, those summer
revellers, sang over head; and Pericles acquired
and practised the art of a profound
and noble statesmanship. Ascending to
that remote period, we shall find the
illustrious ancestor of our wits and humourists in
the comic poet Aristophanes. Aristophanes
had a fertile and ingenious fancy, exuberant
fun, and inexhaustible humour. He is rich
in tropes and figures; he puns with all the