Old Home! for o'er the threshold strange Old Home! for westering age shall shed With sacred thoughts that daily wed Ay, and what is with that beyond Which makes each memory sweet and fond New House, Old Home! and what if here An emblem true should be Of things which shall to us appear In love's eternity? JOHN W. CHADWICK. AT FOUR-SCORE. HIS is the house she was born in, full four-score THIS years ago, And here she is living still, bowed and ailing, but clinging Still to this wonted life, - like an ancient and blasted oak-tree Whose dying roots yet clasp the earth with an iron hold. AT FOUR-SCORE. 171 This is the house she was born in, and yonder across the bay Is the home her lover built, — for her and for him and their children; Daily she watched it grow, from dawn to the evening twilight, As it rose on the orchard hill, 'mid the spring-time showers and bloom. There is the village church, its steeple over the trees Rises and shows the clock she has watched since the day it was started, 'T is many a year ago, how many she cannot remember: Now solemnly over the water rings out the evening hour. And there in that very church, bedizened and changed! though, alas, how They've painted it up, she says, in their queer, new, modern fashion, There on a morning in June she gave her hand to her husband; Her heart it was his (she told him) long years and years before. Now here she sits at the window, gazing out on steeple and hill; All but the houses have gone, trees, and the houses ; the church, and the All, all have gone long since, parents and husband and children; And herself, she thinks, at times, she too has vanished and gone. No, it cannot be she who stood in the church that morning in June, Nor she who felt at her breast the lips of a child in the darkness: But hark! in the gathering dusk comes a low, quick moan of anguish, Ah, it is she indeed who has lived, who has loved, and lost. For she thinks of a wintry night when her last was All gone, ah, yes, it is she who has loved, who has lost and suffered, She and none other it is, left alone in her sorrow and pain. Still with its sapless roots, that stay though the branches have dropped, Have withered and fallen and gone, their strength and their glory forgotten; Still with the life that remains, silent and faithful and steadfast, Through sunshine and bending storm clings the oak to its mother-earth. RICHARD WATSON GILDER. TÊTE-A-TETE. 173 A TÊTE-A-TÊTE. I. BIT of ground, a smell of earth, A pleasant murmur in the trees, The chirp of birds, an insect's hum, And, kneeling on their chubby knees, Two neighbors' children at their play; II. A country schoolhouse by the road, So do not two, a boy and girl, Who stay when all the rest are gone, Solving a problem deeper far Than one they seem intent upon. Dear hearts, of course they do not know III. Now darker is the head of brown, The sense that thrilled their being through Again their heads are bending near, How often shall their heads be bowed With joy or grief, with love and pride, As waxeth strong that feeble life, Or slowly ebbs its falling tide! IV. A seaward hill where lie the dead In dreamless slumber deep and calm ; Above their graves the roses bloom, And all the air is full of balm. They do not smell the roses sweet; They do not feel the breezes blow. |