POETRY.

A BEETHOVEN NIGHT. Music 'awaits you. Let it melt Round aching heart and weary sense, Like night-dew on parched summer grass, Cool-fingered with beneficence.

Is.the soul choked, the heart oppressed With hopes unspoken, foiled, denied P Adelaide sweeps you free

Full flood on love's impassioned tide.

Does troth seem.cold, Truth cloak his face P

• Hark ! Leonora's faith dares all: Outsings the shadow even where Death Races the rescuer's trumpet-call.

Is life too heavy, sense made dumb

With the old questioning " To what end " P Grief-taught, the Master, too, beard Fate

Knock at the door, yet would not bend.

Those summoning notes that high and low Now leap in surge, now ripple by, As though the inexorable should smile

And say : "Love, too, and light am I,"

These you shall hear to-night begin

The symphony's splendour : then half drowned In beauty, pierce the charmed ear, Whispering the Infinite in their sound.

Fate knocks—you hear P—serenely stern,

Bare and unbars :—the Master knew, And from her strength his harmonies A sustenance immortal drew.

He knew, lie felt—and in his hand Music became no weakling toy, But resolute and strong bade man Mingle Necessity and Joy.

LEONARD MIELE-4