Folded their pale hands so meekly,

Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep,
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.

O, though oft depressed and lonely,

All my fears are laid aside,

If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died!

FLOWERS.

SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,

When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;

Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,

Written all over this great world of ours;

Making evident our own creation,

In these stars of earth,-these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,

Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part

Of the self-same universal being,

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;

Large desires, with most uncertain issues;
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!

These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Workings are they of the self-same powers,

Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,

Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing,

Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,

But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield;