It had so sweet a breath! and oft
I blushed to see its foot more soft,
And white, shall I say? than my
Than any lady's of the land.

hand

It was a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet.
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me the race;
And when 't had left me far away,
'Twould stay, and run again, and stay.
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.

I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness;

And all the spring time of the year
It loved only to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I

Have sought it oft, where it should lie
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it although before mine eyes;
For in the flaxen lilies' shade,
It like a bank of lilies laid.
Upon the roses it would feed,
Until its lips e'en seemed to bleed;
And then to me 't would boldly trip,

And print those roses on my lip.
But all its chief delight was still
On roses thus itself to fill;
And its pure virgin lips to fold

In whitest sheets of lilies cold.
Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without roses within.

James Russell Lowell.

Born 1819.

THE FORLORN.

THE night is dark, the stinging sleet,
Swept by the bitter gusts of air,
Drives whistling down the lonely street,
And stiffens on the pavement bare.

The street-lamps flare and struggle dim

Through the white sleet-clouds as they pass,

Or, governed by a boisterous whim,

Drop down and rattle on the glass.

One

poor, heart-broken, outcast girl Faces the east-wind's searching flaws,

And, as about her heart they whirl,

Her tattered cloak more tightly draws.

The flat brick walls look cold and bleak,
Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze;
Yet dares she not a shelter seek,

Though faint with hunger and disease.

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within.

She lingers where a ruddy glow

Streams outward through an open shutter,

Giving more bitterness to woe,

More loneliness to desertion utter.

One half the cold she had not felt,
Until she saw this gush of light
Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt

Its slow way through the deadening night.

She hears a woman's voice within,

Singing sweet words her childhood knew,

And years of misery and sin

Furl off, and leave her heaven blue.

Her freezing heart, like one who sinks
Outwearied in the drifting snow,
Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks

No longer of its hopeless woe:

Old fields, and clear blue summer days,

Old meadows, green with grass and trees, That shimmer through the trembling haze And whiten in the western breeze,—

Old faces, all the friendly past
Rises within her heart again,

And sunshine from her childhood cast
Makes summer of the icy rain.

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,
From all humanity apart,

She hears old footsteps wandering slow
Through the lone chambers of her heart.

Outside the porch before the door,

Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,

She lies, no longer foul and poor,
No longer dreary and alone.

Next morning something heavily

Against the opening door did weigh,
And there, from sin and sorrow free,
A woman on the threshold lay.

A smile upon the wan lips told

That she had found a calm release, And that, from out the want and cold,

The song had borne her soul in

peace.

For, whom the heart of man shuts out,

Straightway the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about

With silence mid the world's loud din ;

And one of his great charities

Is Music, and it doth not scorn
To close the lids upon the eyes
Of the polluted and forlorn;

Far was she from her childhood's home,

Farther in guilt had wandered thence,

Yet thither it had bid her come
To die in maiden innocence.

Abraham Cowley.

Born 1618. Died 1667.

THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES.

WHY dost thou heap up wealth, which thou must quit,
Or, what is worse, be left by it?

Why dost thou load thyself when thou'rt to fly,
O man! ordained to die?