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His hair was all in tangled curl,

Her tawny legs were bare and taper ; And still the gathering larger grew,

And gave its pence and crowded nigher, While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still

With throbs her vernal passion taught her,

Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,

Or by the Arethusan water! New forms may fold the speech, new lands Arise within these ocean-portals, But Music waves eternal wands, Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

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R. H. STODDARD.

With daffodil and starling

And hours of fruitful breath;
If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death.
If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy,
We'd play for lives and seasons,
With loving looks and treasons,
And tears of night and morrow,
And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.

If you were April's lady,

And I were lord in May, We'd throw with leaves for hours, And draw for days with flowers, Till day like night were shady, And night were bright like day; If you were April's lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain, We'd hunt down love together, Pluck out his flying-feather, And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein; If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain.

R. H. STODDARD.

[U. s. A.]

NEVER AGAIN.

THERE are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

We
We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.

Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain :
We seek it everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
But it never comes again!

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EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

289

Against the sunset lie the darkening hills, | And up the listening hills the echoes float Faint and more faint and sweetly multiplied.

Mushroomed with tents, the sudden

growth of war;

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Where mellow haze the hill's sharp outline dims,

Bare elms, like sentinels, watch silently, The delicate tracery of their slender limbs Pencilled in purple on the saffron sky.

Content and quietude and plenty seem Blessing the place, and sanctifying all; And hark! how pleasantly a hidden stream Sweetens the silence with its silver fall!

The failing grasshopper chirps faint and shrill,

The cricket calls, in massy covert hid, Cheery and loud, as stoutly answering still

The soft persistence of the katydid.

With dead moths tangled in its blighted bloom,

The golden-rod swings lonesome on its throne,

Forgot of bees; and in the thicket's gloom, The last belated peewee cries alone. The hum of voices, and the careless laugh Of cheerful talkers, fall upon the ear; The flag flaps listlessly adown its staff; And still the katydid pipes loud and

near.

And now from far the bugle's mellow throat

Pours out, in rippling flow, its silver tide;

Peace reigns; not now a soft-eyed nymph that sleeps

Unvexed by dreams of strife or con

queror,

But Power, that, open-eyed and watchful, keeps

Unwearied vigil on the brink of war.

Night falls; in silence sleep the patriot bands;

And the still figure of the sentry stands The tireless cricket yet repeats its tune, In black relief against the low full

moon.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.
[U. S. A.]
OUR HEROES.

THE winds that once the Argo bore
Have died by Neptune's ruined shrines,
And her hull is the drift of the deep sea
floor,

Though shaped of Pelion's tallest pines.
You may seek her crew in every isle,
Fair in the foam of Egean seas,
But out of their sleep no charm can wile
Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.

And Priam's voice is heard no more
By windy Ilium's sea-built walls;
From the washing wave and the lonely
shore

No wail goes up as Hector falls.
On Ida's mount is the shining snow,
But Jove has gone from its brow away,
And red on the plain the poppies grow
Where Greek and Trojan fought that day.

Mother Earth! Are thy heroes dead? Do they thrill the soul of the years no more?

Are the gleaming snows and the poppies

red

All that is left of the brave of yore?
Are there none to fight as Theseus fought,
Far in the young world's misty dawn?
Or teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught,
Mother Earth! Are thy heroes gone?

Gone?-in a nobler form they rise; Dead? we may clasp their hands in ours, And catch the light of their glorious eyes, And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers.

Wherever a noble deed is done,

There are the souls of our heroes stirred;
Wherever a field for truth is won,
There are our heroes' voices heard.

Their armor rings on a fairer field Than Greek or Trojan ever trod,

Leave him to God's watching eye,

Trust him to the hand that made him. Mortal love weeps idly by: God alone has power to aid him, Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow! What cares he? he cannot know: Lay him low!

For Freedom's sword is the blade they LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

wield,

And the light above them the smile of

God!

So, in his isle of calm delight,
Jason may dream the years away,

But the heroes live, and the skies are bright,

And the world is a braver world to-day.

GEORGE H. BOKER.

[U. s. A.]

DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER,

CLOSE his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon, or set of sun,

Hand of man, or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know:
Lay him low!

As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;
Let him sleep in solemn night,
Sleep forever and forever.

Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know:
Lay him low!

Fold him in his country's stars,

Roll the drum and fire the volley! What to him are all our wars, What but death-bemocking folly? Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow! What cares he? he cannot know: Lay him low!

[U. s. A.]

THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.

IT stands in a sunny meadow,
The house so mossy and brown,
With its cumbrous old stone chimneys,
And the gray roof sloping down.

The trees fold their green arms round it,
The trees a century old;
And the winds go chanting through
them,

And the sunbeams drop their gold.

The cowslips spring in the marshes,
The roses bloom on the hill,
And beside the brook in the pasture

The herds go feeding at will.

Within, in the wide old kitchin,
The old folks sit in the sun,
That creeps through the sheltering wood-
bine,

Till the day is almost done.

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