When noon ruled from the heavens, and man

Through busy day toiled on,

My Spirit drooped his shining wings

His radiant smile was gone;

His voice had ceased, his grace had flown,
His hand grew cold within my own.

Bitter, O bitter tears I wept,
Yet still I held his hand,
Hoping with vague unreasoning hope:
I would not understand
That this pale Spirit nevermore
Could be what he had been before.

Could it be so? My heart stood still.
Yet he was by my side.

I strove; but my despair was vain;
Vain too was love and pride.
Could he have changed to me so soon?
My day was only at its noon.

Now stars are rising one by one,
Through the dim evening air;
Near me a household Spirit waits,
With tender loving care;

He speaks and smiles, but never sings,
Long since he lost his shining wings.

With thankful, true content, I know
This is the better way;

Is not a faithful spirit mine

Mine still at close of day? Yet will my foolish heart repine

For that bright morning dream of mine.

OUR DEAD.

OTHING is our own : we hold our pleasures

Just a little while, ere they are fled :

One by one life robs us of our treasures;

Nothing is our own except our Dead.

They are ours, and hold in faithful keeping,
Safe forever, all they took away.

Cruel life can never stir that sleeping,

Cruel time can never seize that prey.

Justice pales; truth fades; stars fall from heaven;
Human are the great whom we revere:

No true crown of honor can be given,
Till we place it on a funeral bier.

How the Children leave us and no traces
Linger of that smiling angel band;
Gone, forever gone; and in their places
Weary men and anxious women stand.

Yet we have some little ones, still ours;
They have kept the baby smile we know,
Which we kissed one day, and hid with flowers,
On their dead white faces, long ago.

When our Joy is lost and life will take it·
Then no memory of the past remains;
Save with some strange, cruel sting, to make it
Bitterness beyond all present pains.

Death, more tender-hearted, leaves to sorrow
Still the radiant shadow, fond regret :

We shall find, in some far, bright to-morrow,
Joy that he has taken, living yet.

Is Love ours, and do we dream we know it, Bound with all our heart-strings, all our own? Any cold and cruel dawn may show it, Shattered, desecrated, overthrown.

Only the dead Hearts forsake us never;
Death's last kiss has been the mystic sign
Consecrating Love our own forever,
Crowning it eternal and divine.

So when Fate would fain besiege our city,
Dim our gold, or make our flowers fall,
Death, the Angel, comes in love and pity,
And, to save our treasures, claims them all.

A WOMAN'S ANSWER.

WILL not let you say a Woman's part
Must be to give exclusive love alone;
Dearest, although I love you so, my
heart

Answers a thousand claims besides your own.

I love - what do I not love? earth and air
Find space within my heart, and myriad things
You would not deign to heed are cherished there,
And vibrate on its very inmost strings.

I love the Summer with her ebb and flow

Of light, and warmth, and music, that have nurst Her tender buds to blossoms

and you

It was in summer that I saw you first.

know

I love the Winter dearly too,. . . . but then
I owe it so much; on a winter's day,
Bleak, cold, and stormy, you returned again,
When you had been those weary months away.

I love the Stars like friends; so many nights
I gazed at them, when you were far from me,
Till I grew blind with tears . . . . those far-off lights
Could watch you, whom I longed in vain to see.

I love the Flowers; happy hours lie

Shut up within their petals close and fast: You have forgotten, dear; but they and I Keep every fragment of the golden Past.

to make

I love, too, to be loved; all loving praise
Seems like a crown upon my Life,
It better worth the giving, and to raise
Still nearer to your own the heart you take.

I love all good and noble souls;

I heard

One speak of you but lately, and for days, Only to think of it, my soul was stirred

In tender memory of such generous praise.

I love all those who love you; all who owe
Comfort to you and I can find regret

Even for those poorer hearts who once could know,
And once could love you, and can now forget.

Well, is my heart so narrow,

I, who spare

Love for all these? Do I not even hold My favorite books in special tender care, And prize them as a miser does his gold?

The Poets that you used to read to me
While summer twilights faded in the sky;
But most of all I think Aurora Leigh,
Because

because do you remember why?

Will you be jealous? Did you guess before
I loved so many things? Still you the best :
Dearest, remember that I love you more,

O more a thousand times, than all the rest!

THE STORY OF THE FAITHFUL SOUL.

FOUNDED ON AN OLD FRENCH LEGEND.

HE fettered Spirits linger
In purgatorial pain,
With penal fires effacing

Their last faint earthly stain,

Which Life's imperfect sorrow
Had tried to cleanse in vain.

Yet, on each feast of Mary
Their sorrow finds release,
For the Great Archangel Michael
Comes down and bids it cease;
And the name of these brief respites
Is called "Our Lady's Peace."