They told me of her history — her love
Was a neglected flame, which had consumed
The vase wherein it kindled. O how fraught
With bitterness is unrequited love!
To know that we have cast life's hope away
On a vain shadow!
Hers was a gentle passion, quiet, deep,
As a woman's love should be,
All tenderness and silence, only known
By the soft meaning of a downcast eye,
Which almost fears to look its timid thoughts;
A sigh, scarce heard; a blush, scarce visible,
Alone may give it utterance. — Love is
A beautiful feeling in a woman's heart,

Dear Heart! if aught to human love I've owed
For noble furtherance of the good and fair;
Climbed I, by bold emprise, the dizzying stair
To excellence, and was by thee approved,
In memory cherished and the more beloved;
If fortune smiled, and late-won liberty, —
'T was thy kind favor all, thy generous legacy.
Nor didst thou spare thy large munificence
Me here to pleasure amply and maintain,
But conjured from suspicion and mischance,
Exile, misapprehension, cold disdain,
For my loved cloud-rapt dream, supremacy;

The morning's clear, the sky without a frown,
The dew-bespangled pastures wet the shoe;
Sauntering full early toward the sleeping town,
We'll take the dry, well-trodden avenue;
On these crisp pathways, and familiar grounds
(Unless my flattering heart be over-bold),
While lingering purposely amid our rounds,
Some shady lane may love to hear all told.
One name has captured his too partial ear,—
(These kind, concealing bushes love invite
No tell-tales are, nor neighbors impolite;)
I'll hear his suit devoid of blame or fear.

That warmth divine, that holy eloquence,
Those thoughts sublime, conceptions so immense.
That holy zeal, that deep humility,
Extent of knowledge, perfect charity,
That dread of vice, of virtue such a love,
That true submission to the Will above,
That calm indifference to this changing scene,
That pity for the woes of mortal men,
That love and fear of the eternal Good,
That perfect hope in the Redeemer's blood;
Those grand ideas, language so divine,
Which charm, exalt, transport us in S AURIN ;
In reading him , these beauties still appear,

You dont let go of me: O my dear love, you dont let go:
Your heart dont let go: when I have felt as if I was slipping down, dont let go:
In the questioning nights, in the questionable days, when I reached out for something to hold on to, dont let go:
You were always there: somehow always there: you, my love, without words, in joyous silence:
So that I have got so I depend on you: feeling that I cant fall beyond your providence:
You have so surely forgiven me: when I deserved to be turned away, have welcomed me:

I have taken the bad with the good and been happy:
In the irresolution of slow days have taken the bad with the good:
Not waiting to be approved but going about my business without a question:
Being called back a thousand times by those who loved me and by those who feared what I was going to:
Meeting with enemies, often having to fight my way through them inch by inch:
Not always being so dead sure yet always being sure enough to go on:
I and my little enterprise, divine companions, loving each other, side by side:

ON SENDING HER MY LAST SONGS .

A Mademoiselle ...

These songs receive, wherein my Muse hath tried
To paint Love ready to desert my side;
And boasts of Glory, whose misguiding shade
A day may dissipate — a day hath made.
In one divinity no charm you find;
The other captivates your daring mind!
Still — as for Love — Hortense, I hold it true,
That he's the less deceitful of the two.

Self love's th'Arcadian streame,
A brittle Lookeinglasse,
A transitory dreame,
Of what nor is, nor shall ere come to passe
How doth it falsifye the face
Of our abilityes, and make us seeme
Cedars, that are but grasse.

The poisno'us Cockatrice,
If shee chance to surveye
Her owne effigies,
In a cleare Mirroir, doth her owne self slay:
So while wee prye in thee all day,
Doteing upon our selves, with partiall eyes,
Our lives wee weare away.

The crooked Camel loves
The troubled Element,

Where art thou, oh! my Beautiful? Afar
I seek thee sadly, till the day is done,
And o'er the splendour of the setting sun,
Cold, calm, and silvery, floats the evening star;
Where art thou? Ah! where art thou, hid in light
That haunts me, yet still wraps thee from my sight?

Not wholly — ah! not wholly — still Love's eyes
Trace thy dim beauty through the mystic veil,
Like the young moon that glimmers faint and pale,
At noontide through the sun-web of the skies;
But ah! I ope mine arms, and thou art gone,

LAYING THE CORNER-STONE, NORUMBEGA, WELLESLEY COLLEGE .

I N loving faith this stone we place;
God is our trust, — in Him we build;
All noble works through Him are wrought,
All life is with His pulse-beat thrilled.

O Life of life! O Light of light!
Our breath, our joy, our hope, our aim, —
We plant our corner-stone, we rear
Our home, in honor of Thy name!

In love o'er all the work preside