14 FEBRUARY 1885, Page 15

FROM NATURE TO MAN. TIME was when Nature's every mystic mood

Poured round my heart a flood of eager joy ; When pageantry of sunsets moved the boy More than high ventures of the great and good ; When trellised shadows in the vernal wood, And little peeping flowers, so sweet and coy, Were simple happiness without alloy, And whispered to me things I understood.

But now the strange sad weight of human woe, And all the bitterness of human wrong, Press on my saddened spirit as I go, And stir the pulsings of a graver song : Dread mysteries of life and death I scan, And all my soul is only full of Man.

W. WALSIIAM BEDFORD.