AUBER FORESTIER.

TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

  Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam
  Into the slumb’rous tissue of some stream,
  Till his bright self o’er his bright copy seem
  Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;
  So in this night of art thy soul doth show
  Her excellent double in the steadfast flow
  Of wishing love that through men’s hearts doth go: 
  At once thou shin’st above and shin’st below. 
  E’en when thou strivest there within Art’s sky
  (Each star must round an arduous orbit fly),
  Full calm thine image in our love doth lie,
  A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity. 
  So triple-rayed, thou mov’st, yet stay’st, serene—­
  Art’s artist, Love’s dear woman, Fame’s good queen!

SIDNEY LANIER.

CHARLES KINGSLEY:  A REMINISCENCE.

The heat of London in the midsummer of 1857, even to my American apprehension, was intense.  The noise of the streets oppressed me, and perhaps the sight now and again of freshly-watered flowers which beautify so many of the window-ledges, and which seem to flourish and bloom whatever the weather, filled me the more with a desire for the quiet of green fields and the refreshing shade of trees.  I had just returned from Switzerland, and the friends with whom I had been journeying in that land of all perfections had gone back to their home among the wealds and woods of Essex.  I began to feel that sense of solitude which weighs heavily on a stranger in the throng of a great city; so that it was with keen pleasure I looked forward to a visit to Mr. Kingsley.  A most kind invitation had come from him, offering me “a bed and all hospitality in their plain country fashion.”

At four in the afternoon of a hot July day I started for Winchfield, which is the station on the London and Southampton Railway nearest to Eversley—­a journey of an hour and a half.  I took a fly at Winchfield for Eversley, a distance of six miles.  My way lay over wide silent moors:  now and then a quiet farmstead came in view—­moated granges they might have been—­but these were few and far between, this part of Hampshire being owned in large tracts.  It was a little after six when I drew near to the church and antique brick dwelling-house adjoining it which were the church and rectory of Eversley.  There were no other houses near, so that it was evidently a wide and scattered parish.  Old trees shaded the venerable irregularly-shaped parsonage, ivy and creeping plants covered the walls, and roses peeped out here and there.  Mr. Kingsley himself met me at the open hall-door, and there was something in his clear and cheerful tone that gave a peculiar sense of welcome to his greeting.  “Very glad to see you,” said he.  Then taking my bag from the fly, “Let me show you your room at once, that you may make yourself comfortable.”