HELEN OF KIRKCONNELL.

ANONYMOUS.

Helen Irving, daughter of the laird of Kirkconnell, in Dumfriesshire, was beloved by two gentlemen. The name of the one suitor was Adam Fleming; that of the other has escaped tradition. The addresses of the latter were, however, favored by the lady, and the lovers were obliged to meet in the churchyard of Kirkconnell. During one of these interviews, the jealous and despised lover suddenly appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, and levelled his carbine at the breast of his rival. Helen threw herself before her lover, received in her bosom the bullet, and died in his arms. A desperate and mortal combat ensued between the rivals, in which Fleming was cut to pieces. The graves of the lovers are still shown in the church-yard of Kirkconnell.

I wish I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries.
Oh that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnell lea!

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd' Helen dropt,
And died to succor me!

Oh, think ye na my heart was sair,

When my love dropt down and spake nae mair? There did she swoon wi' meikle care,

On fair Kirkconuell lea.

As I went down the water-side, None but my foe to be my guide, None but my foe to be my guide, On fair Kirkcounell lea,

I lighted down, my sword did draw;
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',
For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, beyond compare!
I'll weave a garland of thy hair
Shall bind my heart for evermair,
Until the day I dee!

Oh that I were where Helen lies! Night and day on me she cries; Out of my bed she bids me rise, Says, "Haste, and come to me!"

O Helen fair! O Helen chaste! Were I with thee I would be blest,

1 Maid.

Where thou lies low and takes thy rest,

On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I wish my grave were growing green, A winding-sheet drawn o'er my een, And I in Helen's arms lying,

On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I wish I were where Helen lies! Night and day on me she cries, And I am weary of the skies, For her sake that died for me.

King Charles J.

Charles I., King of England, grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots, was born at Dunfermline, in Scotland, in 1600, and executed in London, January 30th, 1649. The poem from which the following twelve triplets are taken consists of twenty-four, most of them quite inferior to the following. Archbishop Trench does "not doubt that these lines are what they profess to be, the composition of King Charles; their authenticity is stamped on every line." They are creditable to his literary culture, and show that he inherited some of the poetical faculty of his grandmother.

Keep still in my horizon; for to me
The sun makes not the day, but Thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples sentry keep!
Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes,
Whose eyes are open while mine close;
Let no dreams my head infest,
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
While I do rest, my soul advance;
Make my sleep a holy trance,
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought;
And with as active vigor run
My course as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death; oh! make me try,
By sleeping, what it is to die:
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at last with Thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.

These are my drowsy days; in vain
I do now wake to sleep again:

Oh! come that hour when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake forever.

Edmund Waller.

Waller (1605-1687) flourished under the rule of Charles I. and Charles II. His mother was aunt of the celebrated John Hampden, who was first cousin both of Edmund Waller and Oliver Cromwell. Rich and well-born, Waller was educated at Eton, and became a member of Parliament at eighteen. His political life was eventful, and not wholly to his credit. He sat in all the parliaments of Charles II., and was the delight of the House: even at eighty years of age he was the liveliest and wittiest man within its walls. His verses are smooth and polished, but superficial. Overpraised in his day, his fame has, not undeservedly, declined. He was left heir to an estate of £3500 in his infancy, and was either a Roundhead or a Royalist, as the time served. At twenty-five he married a rich heiress of London, who died the same year. Easy and witty, he was yet cold and selfish.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of Beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die, that sho

The common fate of all things rare May read in thee:

How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

ON A GIRDLE.

That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer; My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass, and yet there
Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair:
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.

William Habington.

Habington (1605-1645) was a Roman Catholic. He was educated at St. Omer's and Paris, and after his return to England married the lady who is the "Castara" of his volume of poems. He had no stormy passions to agitate him, no unruly imagination to control. His verses are often of a placid, tender, elegant description, but studded with conceits.

THE MESSAGE OF THE ROSE.

Go, lovely Rose,

Tell her that wastes her time and me That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

NOMINE LABIA MEA APERIES.
No monument of me remain,--
My memory rust

In the same marble with my dust,-
Ere I the spreading laurel gain
By writing wanton or profane!

Ye glorious wonders of the skies!

Shine still, bright stars,

The Almighty's mystic characters! I'd not your beauteous lights surprise To illuminate a woman's eyes.

Nor to perfume her veins will I
In each one set

The purple of the violet:

The untouched flowers may grow and die Safe from my fancy's injury.

Open my lips, great God! and then

I'll soar above

The humble flight of carnal love: Upward to thee I'll force my pen, And trace no paths of vulgar men.

For what can our unbounded souls
Worthy to be

Their object find, excepting thee? Where can I fix? since time controls Our pride, whose motion all things rolls.

Should I myself ingratiate

To a prince's smile,

How soon may death my hopes beguile! And should I farm the proudest state, I'm tenant to uncertain fate.

If I court gold, will it not rust?

And if my love

Toward a female beauty move, How will that surfeit of our lust Distaste us when resolved to dust!

But thon, eternal banquet! where
Forever we

May feed without satiety!
Who harmony art to the ear,—

Who art, while all things else appear!

While up to thee I shoot my flame,

Thou dost dispense

A holy death, that murders sense, And makes me scorn all pomps that aim At other triumphs than thy name.

It crowns me with a victory

So heavenly,--all

That's earth from me away doth fall: And I, from my corruption free, Grow in my vows even part of thee.

John Milton.

66

89

Milton (1608-1674) was the younger son of a London scrivener in good circumstances. At sixteen he entered Christ's College, Cambridge; taking his degree of M.A. in 1632, about which time he wrote "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," "Comus," "Lycidas," and other of his shorter poems. Afterward he travelled in Italy for some fifteen months, and visited blind old Galileo. Returning to England, he kept school for awhile. He strongly advocated the Republican cause, and, on the death of Charles I., was appointed Latin Secretary to the Council of State. At the Restoration he retired into private life; and it was then, in his old age, when he had become totally blind, that he wrote his immortal poems, "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained."

Milton was married three times-first, in 1643, to Mary Powell. It was a hasty marriage, and an unhappy one. Six years after her death he was united to Catherine Woodcock, with whom he lived happily for a year, when, to his great grief, she died. It is of her he speaks in one of his sonnets as "his late espoused saint." In 1660 he married Elizabeth Minshull, who proved an excellent wife. Milton's English sonnets, seventeen in number, are happily described by Wordsworth as "soulanimating strains, alas! too few." Johnson, however, could not see their grandeur, and explained what he considered Milton's "failure" by remarking to Hannah More, "Milton's was a genius that could hew a Colossus out of a rock, but could not carve heads on cherrystones." In his youth Milton was remarkable for his beauty of countenance. His life was the pattern of simplicity and purity, almost to austerity. He acted from his youth as "under his great Taskmaster's eye."

Milton's two juvenile poems, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," hardly deserve the reputation they have long held. He evidently took his hints for them partly from a forgotten poem prefixed to Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," and partly from the song, by Beaumont and Fletcher, "Hence, all you vain delights!" (which see). The poem in Burton's book has these lines:

"When I go musing all alone,

Thinking of diverse things foreknown;

When I build castles in the air,

Void of sorrow, void of fear,

Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet,
Methinks the time runs very fleet.

All my joys to this are folly;
Naught so sweet as Melancholy!"

The remainder of the poem is still more suggestive of resemblance, both in the measure and the general tone. The following tribute to the nobility of Milton's character is paid by Macaulay: "If ever despondency and asperity could be excused in any man, it might have been excused in Milton. But the strength of his mind overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor negleet, had power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience." The fame of this eminent poet seems to have been undisturbed by the lapse of time.