ANNIHILATION.

GEORGE EDGAR MONTGOMERY.

If I could know, as none can know,
That, when my life is ended, I
Shall perish, like the aureate glow
Of rounded stars that die ;

That in the dark beyond our earth
There is no radiant heaven, nor hell,-
I should not curse my human birth,

I should not fear to tell

The sadly wise and bitter thought

That none were born immortal, none Predestined to a God-life wrought Beyond our sky and sun.

Nor should I fear to fill my part,
To live my life out, to aspire

With the whole passion of my heart, To love and to desire.

For it is true that virtue, power,
And all the sweetness of the mind,
Are real as beauty in the flower
And music in the wind;

That any mortal man may be

Sublimely stirred, without a sense That in his doing he must see Some future recompense.

Yet, though I strove with fervent will To act with noble zeal and grace, And with a faith that each may still Live deathless in the race

I think, in lonely hours when sleep Obscures the grief that many bear, That I would turn to heaven and weep With heart-break and despair :

For I should then remember one

Whose gentle love is more to me Than all the years that time can run, Than earth, and air, and sea;

And oh, to part with her were worse Than death and its inhuman fateTo lose her in a universe

Whose gods annihilate.

CARCASSONNE.

(From the French of Gustave Nadaud.)

M. E. W. SHERWOOD.

How old I am! I'm eighty years!
I've worked both hard and long.

Yet, patient as my life has been,
One dearest sight I have not seen

It almost seems a wrong.

Alas, our dreams! they come not true; I thought to see fair Carcassonne !

I have not seen fair Carcassonne !

One sees it dimly from the height
Beyond the mountain blue;
Fain would I walk five weary leagues -
I do not mind the road's fatigues-

Through morn and evening's dew;

But bitter frosts would fall at night,

And on the grapes that yellow blight!

I could not go to Carcassonne,

I never went to Carcassonne.

They say it is as gay all times
As holidays at home;

The gentles ride in gay attire,
And in the sun each gilded spire
Shoots up like those of Rome!

The bishop the procession leads,
The generals curb their prancing steeds -

Alas! I know not Carcassonne !

Alas! I saw not Carcassonne !

Our Vicar's right; he preaches loud,

And bids us to beware.

He says: ""

O guard the weakest part,

And most the traitor in the heart,

Against ambition's snare!"

Perhaps in autumn I can find

Two sunny days with gentle wind;