DEAR E DITH , I am pondering now,
With the sweet south wind on my brow,
And thoughtful eyes, which only see
The past, in sky, and grass, and tree.

Into the past I go to seek
The lustre of thy maiden cheek,
And all thy graces debonair —
I go to seek, and find them there.

Canst thou revisit, as I do,
The time wherein I learned to woo?
The time when, young in thought and years,
We learned love's lore of smiles and tears?

Our early love founDearly cure,
But, cousin mine, of this be sure —

A SAILOR once wooed a farmer's daughter,
The fairest lass in all the country side.
She loved him well; but when he besought her
With beating, beating heart to be his bride,
“A sailor lad,” she said, “I'll never, never wed,
And live a wife and widow all in one;
O no, my charmer shall be a farmer,
Returning faithful with the set of sun.”

At danger's call, across the water
The sailor went, but left his heart behind;
Fresh lovers whispered the farmer's daughter;
Yet when they prayed her to confess her mind,

This is the hour when falls the fadeless light
And hearts turn homeward, weariness oppressed,
To healing springs of sacramental night,
To lofty sources of inspiring rest.

This is the hour when earth-lights disappear,
And starry openings through the night's dim walls
Let angel whispers steal upon the ear
While on the heart Love's perfect music falls.

This is the hour. Lo, all the space around
Is stilled to peace, and down the subtle air
No breezes stir, no step nor word nor sound,
But deep-souled eloquence is breathing there.

ON his flute of gold the blackbird bold
Love's tale to his melting mate has told,
And now the thieves have started;
And o'er the ground, in fluttering round,
Enamoured fly, whilst you and I
In lonesome pain are parted.
But when hearts beat true through the night of sorrow,
They're blest the more when the magic morrow
Its rosy ray has darted.
Fortune may wave her wings and fly,
But she'll flutter back again by and by,
And crown the constant-hearted.

These birds that pair the April air

Had I been true to my deep loneliness,
Nor sought a lesser love to soothe my grief,
Had I been willing not to find relief,
But so to live, companioned by distress,
I, sometimes, to my inner soul confess
The fierce and inarticulate belief
That such despair forever held in fief
Could heal my spirit better than caress.
I have done nothing wrong — I only take
A human love that longed to lift my woe,
I only give a tender sympathy,
And yet — ah! yet, I sometimes long to wake
Alone, to taste again the bitter throe
Of loveless and unsolaced misery.

Love has a myriad of winning ways
Beside the wells of his deep tenderness,
The frolic of his fugitive caress
As in my hair his wanton finger strays,
The lyric laughter of his witching gaze
That draws my own, reluctant, to confess
The swift response that borders on distress,
So clearly it my willing heart betrays.
Love sometimes makes a petulant pretense
Of injured dignity that he doth feign,
As though, in truth, his wayward heart did swell
With artless ardor in his own defence, —
A playful parody of poignant pain,

OH ! a wan cloud was drawn
O'er the dim, weeping dawn,
As to Shannon's side I returned at last;
And the heart in my breast
For the girl I loved best
Was beating — ah beating, how loud and fast

While the doubts and the fears
Of the long, aching years
Seemed mingling their voices with the moaning flood;
Till full in my path,
Like a wild water-wraith,
My true love's shadow lamenting stood.

But the sudden sun kissed
The cold, cruel mist

Would I were Erin's apple-blossom o'er you,
Or Erin's rose in all its beauty blown,
To drop my richest petals down before you,
Within the garden where you walk alone;
In hope you'd turn and pluck a little posy,
With loving fingers through my foliage pressed,
And kiss it close and set it blushing rosy
To sigh out all its sweetness on your breast.

Would I might take the pigeon's flight towards you,
And perch beside your window-pane above,
And murmur how my heart of hearts it hoards you,
O hundred thousand treasures of my love;

In mirth he mocks the other birds at noon,
Catching the lilt of every easy tune;
But when the day departs he sings of love,—
His own wild song beneath the listening moon.

I ROSE at midnight and beheld the sky,
Sown thick with stars, like grains of golden sand
Which God had scattered loosely from His hand
Upon the floorways of His house on high;
And straight I pictured to my spirit's eye
The giant worlds, their course by wisdom planned,
The weary waste, the gulfs no sight hath spanned,
And endless time for ever passing by.

Then, filled with wonder and a secret dread,
I crept to where my child lay fast asleep,
With chubby arm beneath his golden head
What cared I then for all the stars above?