When crowned with hope's garland and glad with life's

brightness,

All glowing and fresh at life's threshold we stood.

The years have gone over; life's brightness has vanished,
Hope's garland of glory lies colourless now:

And life that we thought was so full of life's promise
Has woven a thorn-crown to lay on each brow.

But the years that have gone have borne with them their

sorrows;

We would not recall those again, if we might.

Thank God that the dead-griefs are dead, as the joys are! Thank God that each cloud has its lining of light!

They are dead, they are dead, and are buried for ever;
The shadows they left have grown dim to our eyes;
We see but the glorious sun in his splendour,
We see but the light, if we look to the skies.

The life that is coming is glad and unending,
And nothing of love or of joy shall it lack;

Thank God that Time's chains cannot hold us for ever!
Thank God that the dead years can never come back!

SIR HENRY PARKES, G.C.M.G.

[Prime Minister of New South Wales. Born at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, 1815. Migrated to Australia in 1839. His political career, which is one of almost unparalleled activity and vigour, does not concern the present purpose. But, in addition to his published poems, Sir Henry has always shown himself a lover of literature and the friend and patron of Colonial poets. His kindness to Kendall was life-long, and his appreciation of any form of literary merit gives him an honoured place in the annals of Australia. It is doubtless true that had he

devoted his great ability to literature purely, he would have achieved a high place. It was under his régime that the Empire newspaper was the means of bringing into public notice Charles Harpur and Henry Kendall, the two most distinguished poets of New South Wales. Sir Henry Parkes' own poems should be regarded and criticised as juvenilia, his vigorous manhood having been devoted to politics; but there are lines and verses among these Murmurs of the Stream of the highest merit. Few English statesmen of eminence have produced a set of verses equal to the lines on "Solitude," which so charmed the late Alfred Domett.

News has just been received in London of the death of Lady Parkes. Mr. Varney Parkes, a rising M.P., is Sir Henry's son.]

MY BIRTHDAY.

'Tis come, and almost gone, ere I had thought
The day was more than other joyless days:
And can it be that I am really brought

O'er all this waste of time, by Misery's way's?
A quarter of a century! I gaze

Upon the words I've written, with a grief
Which might atone for Pleasure's idle blaze-

Alas! with ample bitterness, even if

My path had flowery been, my sorrows few and brief.

A quarter of a century is lost:

All hath been built upon the sand to fall! I've dreamt away my life at mighty cost; Nor mine the dreams of happiness withal. Well, Time may have his laugh out! I would call Not ev'n the sunny moments back again; Remembrance holds one joy at least, nor small Its blessed influence o'er my heart and brainMan never knew me stoop to seek unworthy gain.

My birthday! And in England there are some
Will hail to-day with blessings for my sake,

Distrusting the felicity of home,
Because my absence will its sunshine make
An evanescent shadow, which shall wake
Many emotions of the dreamy heart.
Companions of my childhood! angels take

Charge of your being; though we're torn apart,

If my fond prayers be heard, ne'er will your bosoms smart.

Time leaves the world with a destructive speed, Breaking young hearts before they should have wept ; As such were wisely disinherited

Of life's realities, one grief except.

And it may be in mercy they are swept

From earth so early, with the beautiful,

The treasured sweets which cannot here be kept, The fragile flowers of spring which rude hands cull, Since mortal worth and weal seem incompatible.

But whence these musings? My heart hardened is
By what had haply broken it, if one

It had been, so susceptible of this

World's crushing evils; and I struggle on.

It may come mine, when future years are gone,
Yet in beloved England to possess

A home of peace, and think of all I've done,
Even with a keener tranquil happiness

Than if I could have passed through life with suffering less.

I know the vanity of hope. The same
False light may lure me on from year to year
Which led me from my childhood, till I came
O'er half the world, to be an outcast here,
Hurled, worm-like, on the Antarctic hemisphere,

Perchance, to die, cut off from man's esteem:
Yet turn I to this hope the oftener

For consolation, when they little deem

I, with my present lot, am happier than I seem.

SONNET.

WHO would not be a poet-to seclude
Himself in a bright starry solitude,

Away from earthly wretchedness at will;
Where no unlovely thing might present be,
To dim the light of ideality,

And Nature's glories might surround him still? Who would not be a poet-to be blest

With the rich thoughts which they in words have drest; To feel the fire of their undying hopes,

To see all beauty with their gifted sight,

To hang o'er Byron's, Campbell's, Milton's, Pope's,
And Spencer's page, with their divine delight?
Who would not even a poet's loves possess,

To inherit that wild power which beautifies distress?

SONNET.

ESCAPED from shipwreck, on a South Sea isle,
Where grew the bread-tree, a poor Briton dwelt;
Living on pity which the savage felt,

And hope which pictured still his loved one's smile.
A chief-boy chanced that pale one first to meet,
Who brought him food prepared from choicest fruits;
And led him forth to fountains cool and sweet,
And showed him all the islesmen's rude pursuits.

He grew half happy with his uncouth friends,-
For
many friends 'mong the dusk tribes he won:
And still some gentle boy his wants attends,
Seeking for him all treasures of the sun.
Tears rolled away even so; yet would he weep
Wildly for his lost love beyond the stormy deep.

SEVENTY.

THREESCORE and ten,-the weight of years
Scarce seems to touch the tireless brain;
How bright the future still appears!
How dim the past of toil and pain!

In that fair time when all was new,
Who thought of threescore years and ten?
Of those who shared the race, how few
Are numbered now with living men!

Some fell upon the right, and some
Upon the left, as, year by year,

The chain kept length'ning nearer home—
Yet home e'en now may not be near.

But yesterday I chanced to meet

A man whose years were ninety-three;
He walked alone the crowded street-
His eye was bright, his step was free.

And well I knew a worthy who,
Dying in harness, as men say,
Had lived a hundred years and two,
Not halting on his toilsome way!