We talked of change, of winter gone,
Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray,
Of birds that build their nests and sing,
And all "since mother went away!"

To her these tales they will repeat,
To her our new-born tribes will show,
The goslings green, the ass's colt,
The lambs that in the meadow go.

But see, the evening star comes forth!
To bed the children must depart;
A moment's heaviness they feel,
A sadness at the heart:

'Tis gone

and in a merry fit

They run up stairs in gamesome race;
I, too, infected by their mood,

I could have joined the wanton chase.

Five minutes past-and, O the change!
Asleep upon their beds they lie;
Their busy limbs in perfect rest,
And closed the sparkling eye.

Dorothy Wordsworth

SONG FROM "THE PRINCESS"

HOME they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry.
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,

Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her kneeLike summer tempest came her tears "Sweet my child, I live for thee."

Alfred Tennyson

ALISON'S MOTHER TO THE
BROOK

BROOK, of the listening grass,

Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,

Brook of the same wild way and flicker

ing spell!

Must you begone? Will
Will you forever

pass,

After so many years and dear to tell?

Brook of all hoverings

Brook that I kneel above;

Brook of my love.

Ah, but I have a charm to trouble you;
A spell that shall subdue

Your all-escaping-heart, unheedful one
And unremembering!

Now, when I make my prayer
To your wild brightness there
That will but run and run,
O mindless Water!-

Hark, now will I bring

Heed well that threat;

And tremble for your hill-born liberty
So bright to see! -

Your shadow-dappled way, unthwarted yet, And the high hills whence all your dearness bubbled;

You, never to possess !

For let her dip but once-O fair and fleet,
Here in your shallows, yes,

Here in your silverness

Her two blithe feet,

O Brook of mine, how shall your heart be troubled!

The heart, the bright unmothering heart of

you,

That never knew,

(O never, more than mine of long ago. How could we know?-)

For who should guess

The shock and smiting of that perfectness?

The lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet
Unpityingly sweet? -

Sweet beyond all the blurred blind dreams.

The lilt and gladness of those jocund feet, Unpityingly sweet?

Ah, for your coolness that shall change and stir

With every glee of her!

Under the fresh amaze

That drips and glistens from her wiles and

ways;

When the endearing air

That everywhere

Must twine and fold and follow her, shall be

Rippled to ring on ring of melody,

Music, like shadows from the joy of her,

Small starry Reveller!

When from her triumphings,—

All frolic wings

There soars beyond the glories of the height,

The laugh of her delight.

And it shall sound, until
Your heart stand still;

Shaken to human sight;

Struck through with tears and light;

One with the one desire

Unto that central Fire

Of Love the Sun, whence all we lighted are Even from clod to star.

And all your glory, O most swift and

sweet!

And all your exultation only this;
To be the lowly and forgotten kiss
Beneath those feet.

You that must ever pass,

You of the same wild way,

The silver-bright good-bye without a look! —

You that would never stay,

For the beseeching grass

Brook!

Josephine Preston Peabody

CHILDREN'S KISSES

So; it is nightfall then.

The valley flush

That beckoned home the way for herds

and men,

Is hardly spent.