2 JANUARY 1892, Page 25

POETRY.

RUSTICUS EXPECTAT.

So life, you say, must be a blank, In this old house with crumbling eaves, Set on an idle river's bank, And girt about with leaves.

Slowly the spirit moves, in truth, Beyond your urgent city's walls, Your tilting-ground for hope and youth, Where whose lingers falls.

Yet, though we slumber on our lawn, Full recompense the high gods give, All the peculiar pomp of dawn, That is so fugitive : And birds that serenade the streams, And secrets whispered in the grass, And winds that waken from their dreams, To tell them as they pass.

These are our books : therein we find Lore that your city bustles by; The lesson of a quiet mind, Nature's philosophy. E. K. CHAMBERS.