POETRY.

(EMPRESS-DOWAGER. OF CHINA).

WE know the East's fantastic art I

But what dim courts are these Where no intruding breezes part The silken tapestries, Upon whose strange and gorgeous weft, Mid intricate designs Inwrought by myriad fingers deft, The Golden Dragon shines ?

And lo! beneath that splendid pall, Where but to breathe is death, The Imperial termagant we call The new Elizabeth!

For while more wide her borders are Than those of our great Queen, A tale more wonderful by far Her life, erewhile, has been.

Yet, called by fortune to a place

To which she was not born, Full oft, methinks, her thoughts retrace Her infancy forlorn: The wattled hovel bare and rude In the dull Mongol plain, And years of childish servitude In want and toil and pain;

Until some noble's wandering glance

Her growing beauty caught, Who by divinely ordered chance The little maiden bought : Nor dreamed that, when his langnid mind Chose the slight, fair-haired slave, He to the third part of mankind

Their future mistress- gave.

See underneath each drooping lid The inscrutable grey eyes, Within whose changing shadows hid So swift a spirit lies !

The lips that with their ready jest Part in so bright a smile, Disarming even the foes that best Perceive their lurking guile.

For still of those forgotten days The enduring prints remain, The soul long bowed to menial ways Keeps its old servile stain.

Still cloth her cautious speech conceal The thought it seems to tell : Ruled by that will of tempered steel Which serves her people well.

Since by the irony of Fate In those small hands are set The keys of Asia's Eastern gate That stands unbroken yet : Though Europe's hosts beleaguer it And fain its wealth would spoil: But that fine brain and subtle wit Makes light of all their toiL She knows what secret feuds divide The councils of her foes ; What selfish aims their leaders guide To separate ends she knows : And with surrenders ably feigned Resistless force doth meet, Indifferent, so her point be gained, To nominal defeat.

For here the Spirit of the Past, Of coming change afraid, In China's ancient land its last And greatest stronghold made.

And here, if heaven our cause befriend, Must the last fight be won, And the slow march of progress end Where 'twas, long since, begun.

Unless from yon mysterious realm Some second Tamerlane With his uncounted hordes o'erwhelm Our Western world again, And from its trampled fields erase All fruit our labour bore, And tread our just emerging race Into the brute once more.

But these are idle questionings While towards our darkness drawn Onwards, with tireless pinion, wings The Angel of the Dawn : And in the vast and shadowy fold That veils his mighty breast, In sunrise robes of pearl and gold The future lies at rest.

EDWARD SYDNEY TYLEE.