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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 for ever,
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.

[graphic]

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

and you know

It was in summer that I saw you first.

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.

I love, too, to be loved; all loving praise
Seems like a crown upon my Life,—to make
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 favourite 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,

Oh, more a thousand times than all the rest!

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