A BALLADE OF CYCLING.

My slender steed of steel is manned,
His rapid mood with mine agrees,
Each other's hearts we understand,
Our spirits scorn repose and ease.
We speed the valley and the trees
That murmur on above us high,

But soon they die away and cease,
For with the birds we soar and fly.

The sun's eyes glow, his beams expand,
His welcome laughter warms my knees,
And all my brow grows moist and tanned,
Yet on my flashing cycle flees —
On with a heart of health and ease,
With whistling lips and laughing eye,
And not a soul to vex or please;
For with the birds we soar and fly.

Evening droops down upon the land,
On wooing brooks and bowing trees,
But waving high a joyful hand,

I hail the ever-bounding breeze,
The stars innumerable bees-
Now chase the clouds along the sky.
Rider and wheel-one spirit these,
For with the birds we soar and fly!

Prince, if thy Highness only please -
O Prince, and thou shalt never die !
Deign to accept, these handles seize;

For with the birds we soar and fly!

GEORGE HERBERT CLArke.

IN A FIVES COURT.

SOMETIMES at night I stand within a court
Where I have played by day;

And still the walls are vibrant with the sport,
And still the air is pulsing with the sway

Of agile limbs that now, their labours o'er, To healthful sleep their strength resign But how of those who played with me lang syne, And sleep for evermore?

T. E. BROWN.

THE CYCLE.

THIS is the toy, beyond Aladdin's dreaming, This magic wheel upon whose hub is wound All roads, although they reach the world around,

O'er western plain or Orient desert gleaming.

This is the skein from which each day unravels Such new delights, such witching flights, such

joys

Of bounding blood, of glad escape from noise,

And ventures beggaring old Crusoe's travels!

It is as if some mighty necromancer,

At king's command, to meet a lady's whim, Instilled such virtue in a rubber rim

And brought it forth as his triumphant answer.

For, wheresoe'er its shining spokes are fleeting, Fair benefits spring upward from its tread, And eyes grow bright, and cheeks all rosy red,

Responsive to the heart's ecstatic beating.

Thus Youth and Age, alike in healthful feeling, And man and maid, who find their paths are

one,

Crown this rare product of our century's run And sing the praise, the joy, 'the grace of wheeling !

CHARLES H. CRANDALL.

THE SONG MY PADDLE SINGS.

WEST wind, blow from your prairie nest, Blow from the mountains, blow from the west. The sail is idle, the sailor too;

O wind of the west, we wait for you!

Blow, blow!

I have wooed you so,

But never a favour you bestow.

You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.

I stow the sail, unship the mast:
I wooed you long, but my wooing's past;
My paddle will lull you into rest.
O drowsy wind of the drowsy west,

Sleep, sleep,

By your mountain steep,

Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.

August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe, and I
Drift, drift,

Where the hills uplift

On either side of the current swift.

The river rolls in its rocky bed;
My paddle is plying its way ahead;
Dip, dip,

When the waters flip

In foam as over their breast we slip.

And oh, the river runs swifter now;
The eddies circle about my bow.
Swirl, swirl!

How the ripples curl

In many a dangerous pool awhirl!

And forward far the rapids roar,

Fretting their margin for evermore.

Dash, dash,

With a mighty crash,

They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.

Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.
Reel, reel,

On your trembling keel,

But never a fear my craft will feel.

We've raced the rapid; we 're far ahead!

The river slips through its silent bed.

Sway, sway,

As the bubbles spray

And fall in tinkling tunes away.

And up on the hills against the sky,

A fir tree rocking its lullaby

Swings, swings,

Its emerald wings,

Swelling the song that my paddle sings.

E. PAULINE JOHNSON

FROM "THE BOTHIE OF TOBER

NA-VUOLICH."

It was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending.

Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer;

Up the perpendicular hill, Sir Hector so called it, Eight stout gillies had run, with speed and agility wondrous :

Run the course too on the level had been; the

leaping was over.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.