18 OCTOBER 1884, Page 14

POETRY.

A HOLIDAY INVITATION.

COME, friend, with me, if simple thoughts console ;

To our glad session bring no wiser brain—

Come where betwixt the mountain and the plain The billowy uplands of the Border roll.

Better than you bleak Alps to travall'd soul This half-way heaven ; and happier far to gain, Than heights of ecstasy o'er gulfs of pain, The grey-green hills of sober sell-control.

Be wisely passive ; strive not here to find ; But ope thy heart, and, when the hills have sway, Let the great minstrel of the Border-lay About thy spirit all his witchery wind, Or travel to the height of Wordsworth's mind, And with some glorious sonnet crown the day.

J. R.