utile
as well as a foolish thing for the cunning publisher to do, for he
made them all his enemies, and Sir Timothy refused to pay a farthing
of the printing account. So the publisher lost it. Shelley, it is
true, in a cool, polite business letter (April 11, 1811), asks for his
account, which is delayed, and does not reach the poet until some time
after it is sent, when it finds him in Radnorshire, Wales, too poor
to pay it. With an innocency worthy of the days of Adam and Eve,
he, after promising to pay as soon as he can, offers Stockdale the
manuscript of some metaphysical and moral essays--the result of "some
serious studies"--"in part payment of his debt."

JANUARY SEARLE.

* * * * *

CHANGES.

All things resume their wonted look and place,
Day unto day shows beauty, night to night:
No whit less fresh and fugitive a grace
Marks the transitions of the swift year's flight;
But, gradual, sure and strange,
Throughout our being hath been wrought a change.

Brief while ago the first soft day of spring
A personal, fair fortune seemed to be;
The soul awoke with earth's awakening,
With Nature bound in closest sympathy;
Sunshine or quiet rain
Could soothe life's pulse or make it leap again.

Now, stripped of all illusive veil or haze,
Each object looms remote, distinct, apart:
We know its worth, its limits, weight and ways;
It is no longer one with our own heart;
No answering ecstasy
Is roused in us by earth or sea or sky.

Who will affirm this brave display is real,
When on a radiant morn the doom is sent
That rends our world asunder, and we feel
The dear, familiar earth, the firmament,
All forms that meet the eye,
An insubstantial, vacant mockery?

A cobweb world of thin, transparent shapes,
Though limp as silk, the magic woof proves wrought
Stronger than steel: no outlets, no escapes
Ope to the struggling spirit, trapped and caught.
Prisoned in walls of glass,
She sees beyond them, but she may not pass.

Though comfort grows thereafter, nevermore
The bond then snapped, the passionate young faith,
Can healing years with all their gifts restore.
From Psyche's wings life's rude and careless breath
Hath dashed the purple dust,
And with it died the rapture and the trust.

EMMA LAZARUS.

* * * *