'T was twilight, and I bade you go- LOVE, dearest lady, such as I would But still you held me fast; It was the time of roses, We plucked them as we passed! That some time these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thought shall cease, and the immortal sprite speak, Lives not within the humor of the Be lapped in alien clay and laid be- Its bough owns no December and no It is not death to know this-but to But bears its blossoms into winter's know clime. GEORGE HOUGHTON. [From The Legend of St. Olaf's Kirk.] VALBORG WATCHING AXEL'S DEparture. AT kirk knelt Valborg, the cold altar-stone The dull tramp of his troopers, up she fared She pushed her face between the mullions, looked By moon and moor-ild; saw with misty eyes And through the clear air watched it, tossing, pass She sought the scattered gold-threads that had formed With dull do-over of mean drudgeries, And miserable cheer of pitying mouths Whistling and whipping through small round of change How slow the crutches of the limping years! I gave my precious one back to the daisies, From where they caught their color she came; HE erred, no doubt, perhaps he And now, when I look in the face of sinned; Shall I then dare to cast a stone? Perhaps this blotch, on a garment white, Counts less than the dingy robes I own. a daisy, My little girl's face I see, I see! My tears, down dropping, with theirs commingle, And they give my precious one back to me. LORD HOUGHTON (RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES). SINCE YESTERDAY. I'm not where I was yesterday, How catch his greeting tone, — And thus I went up to his door, And they told me he was gone! Oh! what is Life but a sum of love, And not for those that fall! And now how mighty a sum of love Is lost for ever to me I have lost a thought that many a No, I'm not what I was yesterday, year Was most familiar food To my inmost mind, by night or day, In merry or plaintive mood; I have lost a hope, that many a year Looked far on a gleaming way, When the walls of Life were closing round, And the sky was sombre gray. I thought, how should I see him first, How should our hands first meet, Within his room, upon the stair,At the corner of the street ? I thought, where should I hear him first, Though change there be little to see. LABOR. HEART of the people! Working men! Marrow and nerve of human powers; Who on your sturdy backs sustain Through streaming time this world of ours; Hold by that title, which proclaims, That ye are undismayed and strong, Accomplishing whatever aims May to the sons of earth belong. |