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How some are kept in old, dear books,
That once in bridal wreaths were worn;
How some are kissed, with tender looks,
And later tossed aside with scorn;
How some their taintless petals lay
On icy foreheads, pale as they!

So, while these truths you vaguely guess,
Abloom in many a lonesome spot,
Shy roadside roses, may you bless
The fate that rules your modest lot,
Like rustic maids that meekly stand
Below the ladies of their land!

EDGAR FAWCETT.

THE CRICKETS.

PIPE, little minstrels of the waning year,

In gentle concert pipe !

Pipe the warm noons; the mellow harvest near; The apples dropping ripe;

The tempered sunshine, and the softened shade; The trill of lonely bird;

The sweet, sad hush on Nature's gladness laid;
The sounds through silence heard!

Pipe tenderly the passing of the year;
The summer's brief reprieve;

The dry husk rustling round the yellow ear;
The chill of morn and eve!

Pipe the untroubled trouble of the year;

Pipe low the painless pain;

Pipe your unceasing melancholy cheer;

The year is on the wane.

HARRIET MCEWEN KIMBALL.

THE PHOEBE-BIRD.

YES, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird,
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
Came from one throat, or that each note could
borrow

Strength from the other, making one more brave,
And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.

But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
One is for hey day; one is sorrow's cadence.
Our voices vary with the changing seasons
Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.
Therefore despair not. Think not you have

altered,

If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered,
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love, and hate, or good, and evil—all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 'tis the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best,
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.
GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP.

TO THE DANDELION.

DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the

way,

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold!
First pledge of blithesome May,

Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold-
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,

Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth-thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow

Through the primeval hush of Indian seas;
Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease.

'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters

now

To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand;

Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time;

Not in mid June the golden-cuirass'd bee

Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tint,

His conquer'd Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass-
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways—
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind-of waters blue,

That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap-and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth

move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with

thee;

The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,
Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long ;
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listen'd as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring

Fresh every day to my untainted ears,

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth Nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.

JAMES RUSSELL Lowell.

THE SANDPIPER.

ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I;

And fast I gather bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their heads for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit-
One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach-
One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,

Or flash of fluttering drapery;

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