The young man loitered slowly

By the house three times that day; She took the bird from the window: "He need not look this way."

She sat at her piano long,

And sighed, and played a death-sad song.

But when the day was done, she said, "I wish that he would come! Remember, Mary, if he calls

To-night I'm not at home."

So when he rang, she went — the elf!
She went and let him in herself.

They sang full long together

Their songs love-sweet, death-sad; The robin woke from his slumber, And rang out, clear and glad.

"Now go!" she coldly said; "'t is late;" And followed him to latch the gate.

He took the rosebud from her hair,
While "You shall not!" she said;
He closed her hand within his own,
And, while her tongue forbade,
Her will was darkened in the eclipse
Of blinding love upon his lips.

WILLIAM D. HOWELLS.

I

EVE'S DAUGHTER.

WAITED in the little sunny room:

The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play,

The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,
And out upon the bay

I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come.

"Such an old friend, she would not make me stay

-

While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo, Danaë in her shower! and fit to slay

All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:

Gold hair, that streamed away

As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow.

"She would not make me wait!" but well I know She took a good half-hour to loose and lay Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

ST. GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE.

HE pass'd up the aisle on the arm of her sire,

SHE

A delicate lady in bridal attire,

Fair emblem of virgin simplicity;

Half London was there, and, my word, there were few

That stood by the altar, or hid in a pew,

But envied Lord Nigel's felicity.

THE LOVE-LETTER.

Beautiful bride! So meek in thy splendor,
So frank in thy love, and its trusting surrender,
Departing you leave us the town dim!

May happiness wing to thy bower, unsought,
And may Nigel, esteeming his bliss as he ought,
Prove worthy thy worship, confound him!

65

FREDERICK LOCKER.

WA

THE LOVE-LETTER.

ARMED by her hand and shadowed by her hair As close she leaned and poured her heart through thee,

Whereof the articulate throbs accompany

The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness

Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,
Oh let thy silent song disclose to me

That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
Like married music in Love's answering air.

Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought, Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,

And her breast's secrets peered into her breast; When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul sought My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught

The words that made her love the loveliest.

DANTE G. ROSSETTI.

SUMMER IS COMING.

UMMER is coming, summer is coming.

"SUMMER

I know it, I know it, I know it.

Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,"

Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue.

Last year you sang it as gladly.

"New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new

That you should carol so madly?

"Love again, song again, nest again, young again!" Never a prophet so crazy!

And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,

See, there is hardly a daisy.

"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!

O warble unchidden, unbidden!

Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,

And all the winters are hidden.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

UMPIRES.

E chose our blossoms, sitting on the grass;

WE

His, Marguerites, with sunny, winsome faces, Mine, the bright clover, with its statelier graces. "Let these decide the argument, my lass;

We'll watch," said he, "the light-winged breezes pass
And note which first the earliest whiff displaces:

If it be daisy, yours the sore disgrace is,
And if it's clover, then I yield, alas!"
The lightsome quarrel was but half in jest ;
I would go homeward; he would sit and rest -
The foolish cousin whom I would not wed.
Smiling we waited; not a word we said,
In earnest he, and I quite debonair
But oh, the stillness of that summer air!

So still it was so still with quiet heat,
The blossom lately from the brooklet quaffing
Ceased its brisk dipping and sly telegraphing,
And scorned the blossom opposite to greet.
The very grass stood breathless at our feet;

When suddenly, our weighty silence chaffing,
The leaves around broke out in muffled laughing,
And something stirred the fickle Marguerite!

In truth, those silly blossoms fluttered so,

I really knew not if to stay or go.

And so it happened that the twilight found me

Still resting there, — and Charley's arm around me.

MARY MAPES DODGE.