And though it be long since daisies grew

Where Irk and Irwell flow,
If human love springs up anew,

And angels come and go,
What matters it that the skies were blue
A hundred years ago?

Bessie Rayner Parkes.

LIVERPOOL.

IN

Liverpool, the good old town, we miss

The grand old relics of a reverend past, Cathedrals, shrines that pilgrims come to kiss,

Walls wrinkled by the blast. Some crypt or keep, historically dear,

You find, go where you will, all England through: But what have we to venerate, - all here

Ridiculously new.

We have our Castle Street, but castle none;

Redcross Street, but its legend who can learn ; Oldhall Street, too, we have, the old hall gone;

Tithebarn Street, but no barn.

Huge warehouses for cotton, rice, and corn,

Tea and tobacco, log and other woods,
Oils, tallow, hides that smell so foully foreign,

Yea, all things known as goods,

These we can show, but nothing to restore

The spirit of old times, save here and there

An ancient mansion with palatial door,

In some degenerate square.

Then rise the merchant princes of old days,

Their silken dames, their skippers from the strand, Who brought their sea-borne riches, not always

Quite free from contraband.

And these their mansions, to base uses come,

Harbors for fallen fair ones, drifting tars; Some manufactories of blacking, some

Tobacco and cigars.

We have a church that one almost reveres,

St. Nicholas, nodding by the river-side, In old times hailed by ancient mariners

That came up with the tide.

And there's St. Peter's, too, not quite so frail,

Yet old enough for antiquated thoughts : Ah, many a time I lean against the rail

To hear its sweet cracked notes.

For when the sun has clomb the middle sky,

And wandered down the short hour after noon, Then to the heedless world that hurries by

The clock bells clink a tune.

They give us "Home, Sweet Home” in plaintive key,

And in its turn breaks out “The Scolding Wife,” To show that home, however sweet it be,

Is yet not free from strife

But sometimes “Auld Lang Syne” comes clinking forth,

And surely every listening heart is charmed; For what are even the sorrows of the earth

When, past, they are transformed ?

Yet all is so ridiculously new,

Except, perhaps, the river and the sky, The waters and the immemorial blue

Forever sailing by.

Ay, they are old, but new as well as old,

For old and new are just the same sky dream,
One metal in a slightly different mould,
The same refiltered stream,

Robert Leighton.

THE DINGLE.

STRA

YTRANGER! that with careless feet

Wanderest near this green retreat,
Where through gently bending slopes
Soft the distant prospect opes;
Where the fern, in fringéd pride,
Decks the lonely valley's side;
Where the white-throat chirps his song,
Flitting as thou tread'st along:

Know, where now thy footsteps pass
O’er the bending tufts of grass,
Bright gleaming through the encircling wood,
Once a Naiad rolled her flood.

If her urn, unknown to fame,
Poured no far extended stream,
Yet along its grassy side
Clear and constant rolled the tide.

Grateful for the tribute paid,
Lordly Mersey loved the maid;
Yonder rocks still mark the place
Where she met his stern embrace.

Stranger, curious, wouldst thou learn
Why she mourus her wasted urn ?
Soon a short and simple verse
Shall her hopeless fate rehearse.

Ere yon neighboring spires arose,
That the upland prospect close,
Or ere along the startled shore
Echoed loud the cannon's roar,

Once the maid, in summer's heat,
Careless left her cool retreat,
And by sultry suns opprest,
Laid her wearied limbs to rest;

Forgetful of her daily toil,
To trace each humid tract of soil,
From dews and bounteous showers to bring
The limpid treasures of her spring.

Enfeebled by the scorching ray,
She slept the circling hours away;

And when she oped her languid eye,
She found her silver urn was dry.

Heedless stranger! who so long
Hast listened to an idle song,
Whilst trifles thus thy notice share,
Hast thou no urn that asks thy care ?

William Roscoe.

Lockswell.

LOCKSWELL.

URE fount, that, welling from the wooded hill,

Thou to the traveller dost tell no tale
Of other years; a lone, unnoticed rill,
In thy forsaken track, unheard of men,
Melting thy own sweet music through the glen.

Time was when other sounds and songs arose:
When o'er the pensive scene, at evening's close,
The distant bell was heard; or the full chant
At morn came sounding high and jubilant;
Or, stealing on the wildered pilgrim's way,
The moonlight Miserere died away,
Like all things earthly.

Stranger, mark the spot; No echoes of the chiding world intrude. The structure rose and vanished; solitude