Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too

My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled;
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.


ROBERT BROWNING.

* * * * *



A CONSERVATIVE.


The garden beds I wandered by
One bright and cheerful morn,
When I found a new-fledged butterfly
A-sitting on a thorn,
A black and crimson butterfly,
All doleful and forlorn.