His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashed him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,-
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,-

These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they,
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts;-not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play.
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Classes itself in tempests: in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime;
The image of eternity, the throne

Of the Invisible: even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy

I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear.
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane -as I do here.

TELL TO HIS NATIVE MOUNTAINS

James Sheridan Knowles.

Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,

To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,
And bid your tenant welcome home again!

O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!
How huge you are! how mighty and how free!
How do you look, for all your bared brows,
More gorgeously majestical than kings
Whose loaded coronets exhaust the mine.

Ye are the things that tower, that shine; whose smile
Makes glad-whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear

Of awe divine; whose subject never kneels
In mockery, because it is your boast
To keep him free!

Ye guards of liberty,

I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you
To show they still are free. I rush to you
As though I could embrace you!

The hour
Will soon be here. Oh, when will Liberty
Once more be here? Scaling yonder peak,
I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow;
O'er the abyss his broad-expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up.

Instinctively

I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath

And round about; absorbed, he heeded not

The death that threatened him. I could not shoot. 'Twas liberty. I turned my bow aside,

And let him soar away.

X. The Monologue

A monologue is a poem written to convey some person's relation of opinion to some other person or persons, and in delivering a monologue the interpreter should first know what kind of character is speaking. He must further know in what situation or environment the characters are placed. He must know something of the construction or rhythm of the poem with which he is dealing. He must also know all the poetical allusions, and although he may realize exactly the kind of character and age and nationality, yet, this must only be suggested. It is not necessary, neither is it truthful, to render a monologue in costume or make up unless he has all the other things, of which, to which, and about which, he speaks or refers to in his interpretation, and should he have all of the accessories, then it is no longer a monologue, but becomes a play. A

monologist is a man or woman giving you a "piece of his mind" and talk.

The unfortunate degradation in the art of the Spoken Word comes very often in the rendering of a monologue. For some lady will attempt to give a scene which possibly may transpire in a seat at a theatre, as is told in some of the cheaper and minor monologues. In such a case, the untutored reader will sometimes seat herself in a chair and put another chair in front of her to indicate one in which is seated a woman, who has difficulty in seeing what is going on upon the stage because of the dimensions of the woman's hat in front of her. The inconsistency of such a rendering shows gross ignorance and absolute non-concentration; for, if the woman in rendering is supposed to be the woman at the opera, she, of course, should have all of her opera paraphernalia; she should have a woman on a chair in front of her with a hat on, of the unusual dimensions; and there should be a show going on in front of her, and all of the necessary properties which would require the setting which she mentions, otherwise, there is no consistency, and it is far better to suggest all than to have a part and suggest the rest.

A person in attempting to render a Browning monologue will find it quite impossible and inconsistent to attempt in any degree to use any properties in the rendition. Of course, it is a temptation of the student who is lame in understanding, to find all the properties that it is possible for him to conjure, and lean upon them in the absence of the absolute.

The monologue, like the play, indicates that something has happened which leads up to the speech of some definite character. The monologue should be rendered definitely by a character solely to the other character or characters which are upon the platform with him or inside the pro

scenium, but there should be nothing in the monologue to carry him out of that relation. Though he radiates to a part of the audience, yet he should have no cognizance of any person or persons in the audience, neither should he become familiar in any degree with any person or persons in the audience.

EVELYN HOPE

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Robert Browning.

Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

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 naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, naught 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!