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DESTINY.

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But.. I wonder what day of the week,

THREE roses, wan as moonlight and I wonder what month of the year.

weighed down

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UNSUNG.

As sweet as the breath that goes
From the lips of the white rose,
As weird as the elfin lights
That glimmer of frosty nights,
As wild as the winds that tear
The curled red leaf in the air,
Is the song I have never sung.

In slumber, a hundred times
I have said the mystic rhymes,
But ere I open my eyes
This ghost of a poem flies;
Of the interfluent strains
Not even a note remains:
I know by my pulses' beat
It was something wild and sweet,
And my heart is strangely stirred
By an unremembered word!

I strive, but I strive in vain,
To recall the lost refrain.
On some miraculous day
Perhaps it will come and stay;
In some unimagined Spring
I may find my voice, and sing
The song I have never sung.

RENCONTRE.

TOILING across the Mer de Glace
I thought of, longed for thee;
What miles between us stretched,
alas!

What miles of land and sea!

My foe, undreamed of, at my side
Stood suddenly, like Fate.
For those who love, the world is wide,
But not for those who hate.

THE FADED violet.

WHAT thought is folded in thy leaves! What tender thought, what speechless pain!

I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Thou darling of the April rain!

I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Though scent and azure tint are fled-
O dry, mute lips! ye are the type
Of something in me cold and dead;

Of something wilted like thy leaves;
Of fragrance flown, of beauty dim;
Yet, for the love of those white hands,
That found thee by a river's brim -

That found thee when thy dewy mouth

Was purpled as with stains of wine-
For love of her who love forgot,
I hold thy faded lips to mine.

That thou shouldst live when I am

dead,

When hate is dead, for me, and wrong,

For this, I use my subtlest art,
For this, I fold thee in my song.

AFTER THE RAIN.

THE rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church's dizzy vane
The ancient cross is bathed in blood.

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The thin swift pinion cleaving Fairer it looked than when upon the

through the gray.

Till we awake ill fate can do no ill The resting heart shall not take up

again

The heavy load that yet must make it bleed;

For this brief space the loud world's

voice is still,

No faintest echo of it brings us pain. How will it be when we shall sleep indeed?

MASKS.

Black Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise

And shows you laughing lips and roguish eyes;

But when, unmasked, gay Comedy

appears,

How wan her cheeks are, and what heavy tears!

THE ROSE.

Fixed to her necklace, like another gem,

A rose she wore the flower June made for her;

stem,

And must, indeed, have been much happier.

MAPLE LEAVES.

October turned my maple's leaves to gold;

The most are gone now; here and there one lingers;

Soon these will slip from out the twigs' weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.

TO ANY РОЕТ.

Out of the thousand verses you have writ,

If Time spare none, you will not care at all;

If Time spare one, you will not know of it: Nor

shame nor fame can scale a churchyard wall.

CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

"And he buried him in a valley in the

land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."

By Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave, In a vale in the land of Moab There lies a lonely grave. And no man knows that sepulchre, And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod

And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever pass'd on earth;
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth-
Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes back when night is done, And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek

Grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly as the spring-time

Her crown of verdure weaves, And all the trees on all the hills Open their thousand leaves; So without sound of music, Or voice of them that wept,

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And the kine's keeper, came
Slow up the valley path,
And laid them underneath
My cool and rustling leaves;
And I could feel them there
As in the quiet shade
They stood with tender thoughts,
That pass'd along their life
Like wings on a still lake,
Blessing me; and to God,
The blessed God, who cares
For all my little leaves,
Went up the silent praise;
And I was glad with joy
Which life of laboring things

Ill knows, the joy that sinks-
Into a life of rest.

Ages have fled since then:

But deem not my pierced trunk

And scanty leafage serve
No high behest; my name
Is sounded far and wide;
And in the Providence
That guides the steps of men,
Hundreds have come to view
My grandeur in decay;

And there hath pass'd from me
A quiet influence

Into the minds of men:
The silver head of age,
The majesty of laws,
The very name of God,
And holiest things that are
Have won upon the heart
Of humankind the more,
For that I stand to meet
With vast and bleaching trunk,
The rudeness of the sky.

ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

ENDURANCE.

How much the heart may bear, and yet not break!

How much the flesh may suffer, and not die!

I question much if any pain or ache Of soul or body brings our end more nigh;

Death chooses his own time; till that is sworn,

All evils may be borne.

We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's knife.

Each nerve recoiling from the cruel steel

Whose edge seems searching for the quivering life,

Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal,

That still, although the trembling flesh be torn,

This also can be borne.

We see a sorrow rising in our way, And try to flee from the approaching ill;

We seek some small escape; we weep and pray;

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