In the year that's come and gone, dear, we wove a tether

All of gracious words and thoughts, binding two together.

In the year that 's coming on, with its wealth of roses, We shall weave it stronger yet, ere the circle closes.

In the year that's come and gone, in the golden weather,

Sweet, my sweet, we swore to keep the watch of life together.

In the year that's coming on, rich in joy and sorrow, We shall light our lamp, and wait life's mysterious

morrow.

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

TWI

LOVE'S VICTORY.

WICE had the changing seasons run their round,
Bringing to mortals happiness and tears;

The third year came, and with it heaven itself

Took wing to fold its pinions on my heart!
Then in the self-same eyes I gazed again,

To read there love, immeasurable love,

In sanctity of virgin scripture writ;

And words were murmured, words that passed her lips

To pass again no others, but one breast

Still echoes with them, as with rolling hymns

And hallelujahs some high-vaulted roof,

Beneath which joy in praise its wealth outpours.

FAR, AND YET NEAR.

Then, as high-rising tides might lift a barque,
That long had waited, and the mariners,
Now homeward bound, with many a loud huzza,
Run to the ropes together, all as one

Lay hold, spread topsail and topgallant, set
The royals, fix the booms, while every soul
Bubbles with pleasure as before the prow
The gamesome foam goes dancing, and the wake
Grows white behind: so love and love's delight
Swelled to uplift me on their wide expanse,
While all the winds of promise blew me home.
And when the ocean of that summer's joy
Beat on the shores of autumn, then, there came
My heart to port, with all its argosies
Of hopes that furled their sails in blessedness.
Nor yet I called her mine. How could I dare?
Mine as the sky the eagle's, when he floats
Amid its deeps! Mine as the sun of June
Is propertied by the cup he paints with gold,
Or morning by the birds, whose folded sleep
Her soft ray touches till it flower in song!

DAVID A. WASSON.

59

FAR, AND YET NEAR.

O from me.

Go

Yet I feel that I shall stand

Hence forward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door

Of individual life, I shall command

The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore, ..
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

BY THE SWINGING SEAS.

HE sauntered by the swinging seas,

SHE

A jewel glittered at her ear,

And, teasing her along, the breeze

Brought many a rounded grace more near.

So passing, one with wave and beam,
She left, for memory to caress,
A laughing thought, a golden gleam,
A hint of hidden loveliness.

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

TO A GIRL.

61

"LAST NIGHT IN BLUE MY LITTLE LOVE

L

WAS DRESSED."

AST night in blue my little love was dressed;

And as she walked the room in maiden grace,

I looked into her fair and smiling face,

And said that blue became my darling best.
But when, this morn, a spotless virgin vest

And robe of white did the blue one displace,
She seemed a pearl-tinged cloud, and I was-space!
She filled my soul as cloud shapes fill the West.
And so it is that, changing day by day, -

Changing her robe, but not her loveliness, Whether the gown be blue, or white, or gray, I deem that one her most becoming dress. The truth is this: In any robe or way,

I love her just the same, and cannot love her less! CHARLES HENRY WEBB ("JOHN PAUL").

TO A GIRL.

HOU art so very sweet and fair,

THOU

With such a heaven in thine eyes,

It almost seems an overcare

To ask thee to be good or wise.

As if a little bird were blam'd
Because its song unthinking flows;

As if a rose should be asham'd

Of being nothing but a rose.

ANON.

O

AGRO-DOLCE.

NE kiss from all others prevents me,
And sets all my pulses astir,

And burns on my lips and torments me:
'Tis the kiss that I fain would give her.

One kiss for all others requites me,
Although it is never to be,

And sweetens my dreams and invites me:
'Tis the kiss that she dare not give me.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

CAPRICE.

HE hung the cage at the window:

SHE

"If he goes by," she said, "He will hear my robin singing,

And when he lifts his head,
I shall be sitting here to sew,
And he will bow to me I know."

The robin sang a love-sweet song,

The young man raised his head; The maiden turned away and blushed: "I am a fool!" she said,

And went on broidering in silk
A pink-eyed rabbit, white as milk.