Dead, with never a mother's kiss,
Ere yon low moon drops out of the skies!
Forward she sprang, in the torch-light blaze
Full overhead as the cart went by-
All her soul in that straining gaze,

All her strength in that maddened cry.
He turned, as it smote through his dulling

ears:

Their wild eyes met-and the cart drove on. So Mother Michaud, after nine long years, Looked into the face of her youngest son.

IN THE SEED.

You have chosen coldly to cast away

The love they tell you is faithless found. Pity or trust it is vain to pray

Your heart they have hardened, your

senses bound.

You have broken the wreaths that clasped you round,

The strength of the vine and the opening flower:

Love, torn and trampled on stony ground, Is left to die in its blossom hour.

Well, go your ways; but, wherever they lead,

They cannot leave me wholly behind. From the flower, as it falls, there falls a seed

Whose roots round the root of life shall wind.

So sure as the soul in the flesh is shrined, So sure as the fire in the cloud is set,

Be you ever so cold or ever so blind, You shall find and fathom and feel me yet. As the germ of a tree in the close dark earth Struggles for life in its breathless tomb, Quickening painfully into birth,

Writhing its way up to light and room; As it spreads its growth till the great boughs loom

A shade and a greenness wide and high, And the birds sing under the myriad bloom,

And the top looks into the infinite sky;

So shall it be with the love to-day

Flung under your feet as a worthless thing.

The hour and the spot I cannot say

Where the seed, fate-sown, at last shall spring:

Beyond, it may be, the narrow ring Of our little world in swarming space, After weary length of journeying,

It shall drop from the wind to its destined place.

But somewhere, I know, it shall reach its height!

Sometimes it shall conquer this cruel wrong!

The sun by day, and the moon by night, Shower and season, shall bear it along. You will sleep and wake while it waxes strong

And green beside the appointed ways,

Till, full of blossom and dew and song, You shall find it there after many days. Perchance it shall be amid long despair Of toiling over the desert sand; When your eyes are burned by the level glare,

And the staff is fire to your bleeding hand.

Then the waving of boughs in a silent land,

And a wonder of green afar shall spread,

And your feet as under a tent shall stand, With shadow and sweetness about your head.

And my soul, like the unseen scent of the flower,

Shall circle the heights and the depths of the tree:

Nothing of all in that consummate hour That shall not come as a part of me! This world or that may my triumph seeBut love and life can never be twain,

And time as a breath of the wind shall be, When we meet and grow together again!

UNDER THE MOON.

LIKE a lily-flower uplifted
Full blown on the blue tide-sway,
Into the heaven blossoms

The perfect moon of May.
White under her own white glory

She sees, on the green young ground, The fallen bloom of the cherry

Drift over a double mound.
There, where the cottage chimneys
Peer dim through a mist of trees,
They sat by the hearth at evening,

With the child about their knees.

Three empty seats by the fireside,

Two graves 'neath the orchard bough The dead are at rest together;

But where is the living now!

Pale in the smoky circle

That fain would shadow her noon, Over the lights of the city Trembles the large May moon.

But blind to that searching splendor,
Deaf to the riotous street,

He lies in a drunken slumber-
The child that played at their feet.
Were it not well, in the cradle,
Long since the babe had died?
Had the little headstone risen
Those two green mounds beside ?
Nay, this is not the ending,

O child of their love and prayer!
God's moon is one in the heavens,
His mercy every where.

A CHILDISH FANCY.

OH mother! see how pale and wet

The flowers on father's grave are lying! It must be watching you has set

The little daisy-buds to crying! Poor child! and do you think the earth Sorrows because our hearts are aching? Look, then, with what a careless mirth That sunlight on his bed is breaking! Yes, but you called the great blue air God's home, to all His angels given; And so perhaps the sunbeam there Is father smiling up in heaven!

SIXTEEN AND SIXTY.

SING with me, laugh with me, sister Spring!
Oh! we are happy, we two, to-day!
Are we two, or the self-same thing?
Thou and I, O beautiful May?

I thrill as a leaf to the circling air:

The blood in my veins is like sap in the vine:

The wild bees follow my floating hair,

Made sweet with buds for this lover of mine.

Frame me in light for his eyes anew!

Does the earth shrink under your gaze,
O sky?

I am fair as a flower; I am fresh as the dew:
We are young together, the year and I.
Heavens! to think there can come a time
When the sense is dull and the pulse is
slow!

To stand, in the spring-tide's golden prime,
The single blot on the whole great glow!
Poor madame yonder, with all her gold,
She is pale and wrinkled, and old and
alone;

She is less alive than the mossy mould

That clings to the top of that buried stone.

I never can be like that, I know,

We have years on years of our youth's bright flower;

And if ever my love must let him go,

I shall drop and die in the self-same hour.

Hark! he is coming! The faint winds sigh
Before his feet to bring him soon!
While over us both, in the warm blue sky,
The sun goes quivering up to noon.

One may venture to trust the sun to-day:
There is warmth at last in that seeming

blaze.

At last!-already the midst of May!

So backward the springs are nowadays! What do I see by the terrace there,

That dazzles so white on the slope of green?

It is little Laura, with flowers in her hair? Ah yes to-day she is just sixteen.

Poor silly baby! I understand

What keeps you loitering there alone: Each bough in your path an outstretched hand,

And every whisper a lover's tone.

You fancy, perhaps, in your giddy youth, I can never have dreamed such dreams as you?

Eh, child? I have had my May, forsooth!
Fairer than yours while it lasted, too.

To think that the time has been when even
I, too, was a fool in Paradise!
When the spring was the year, and the earth
a heaven,

And heaven itself was in two blue eyes!

Only sixteen! Such a weary round

Before she can find what the whole is worth!

Her Garden of Eden common ground,

And her idol himself but a lump of earth.

Ah, well! like the rest she must live and learn.

The flower of youth must wither and fall; The fire of love to its ashes burn;

For me-thank Heaven! I have done with it all.

AWAKENED.

My heart was like a hidden lyre

In silence that so long hath lain-
Not e'en the cold, neglected wire

Remembereth its own sweet strain:
Till thou, a breeze from summer shore,
Breathed tenderly across the string,
That, waking into life once more,
Began the broken song to sing.
My soul was like a diamond spark
Imprisoned in the rocky mine,
Unconscious, in that eyeless dark,

What hidden fires within it shine:
Till thou, a gleam of noonday light,
Upon the buried jewel came,
That, breaking from its long, dull night,
Leaped up, a many-tinted flame.
My life was like a pallid flower

Within the shadow sprung, alone,
Forgotten of the sun and shower,
And withering ere it has blown:
Till thou, a drop of morning dew,
Stole softly downward through the gloom
And straight the bud asunder flew

To fill the air with balm and bloom.

Then take, and fashion to thy will,

This heart and soul and life of mine! Shall not thine own free gifts fulfill Their utmost hope in seeking thine? I claim no harvest from a field

My hands have tended not: the tone, The fragrance, and the light revealed By thee, belong to thee alone!

SAWDUST.

LAST night I happened, quite by chance
Intruding late upon the scene,
To see a most delightful dance
My little sister's dolls between.

It was a party so select,

Conducted in the style approved, I really hardly could detect

"Twas not the circle where I moved!

A manikin I marked, whom all

Seemed, as one doll, to hang about (Except a cynic by the wall,

Whose grapes were sour enough, no doubt).

And as I saw the eager smile

Of such a very pretty ninny-
Whose waist and hair and general style
Were not unlike my cousin Winny-

And watched that other savage face,
A startling sort of likeness came
Between the poor doll-fellow's case
And-some one's whom I need not name.

And still the question puzzles me,
Remembering the look he wore—
Am I a doll? or can it be

That I have seen it all before?

While mine!-well, I bought it, weeds and all, this summer, of Parson West: He's great in the pulpit Sundays-but his farming's none of the best!

Not that I mean to grumble, for I think myself lucky enough

To get a piece of my own at last; what odds if it's ever so rough?

But here, at my nooning, I catch a whiff of the clover now and then, Mixed with a laugh, and look over the wall, to see her there again,

Talking with Bill. It's the queerest thingif girls were not always so !— What brings her so often, lately? It isn't for him, I know.

And Bill, he takes it so easy!—while she, with a pretty art,

Mixes her smiles and blushes in a way I've learned by heart,

Looks up and down together, enough to bewilder a man,

He pulls at that hard old cider, with barely a glance from the can!

Well, well, I grudge the time to laugh till after my work is done;

But only to see a fellow in clover-more ways than one

Turn coolly round to feeding, like an ox let out from a stall,

Careless of summer sight or sound, and something sweeter than all!

You lump of bread and butter, Bill! if 1 were there in your stead!

There's more than hay in your clover-field, and a meaning in lips so red!

If only I stood there, close to her, with the clover up to my knees,

Full of the dew and the sunlight, and the whirl and hum of the bees,

I'd envy neither your cider, nor the blossomwine they drink :

There's a sweeter honey than ever yet was ripened for either, I think.

Well, it's easier wishing than working, but there isn't much of a doubt

A man must raise his clover himself, or manage to do without,

Bill's was his father's before him, it's true, but Bill's no rule for me;

I reckon he's no more like to win what both of us want, you see.

So, Dobbin, nooning is over. What! is she going away?

Eat on, old horse, for a little; she's sure to have something to say.

It's always the same: a word or a look just as she passes the gate,

With a smile that dazzles my wits away till after it's all too late.

No matter: some day, when my clover is growing tall and red,

I'm bound to ask a question shall make her falter instead.

It's only waiting and working a little longer still:

Get up to your work, old fellow! she doesn't care for Bill!

THE FANCY BALL.

As Morning you'd have me rise

On that shining world of art;

You forget: I have too much dark in my

eyes

And too much dark in my heart.

"Then go as the Night-in June: Pass, dreamily, by the crowd,

moon,

And shadowy robes like cloud.

'Or as Spring, with a spray in your hair

Of blossoms as yet unblown;

It will suit you well, for our youth should

wear

The bloom in the bud alone.

"Or drift from the outer gloom

With the soft white silence of Snow:" I should melt myself with the warm, close

room

Or my own life's burning. No.

"Then fly through the glitter and, mirth As a Bird of Paradise: "

Nay, the waters I drink have touch'd the earth:

I breathe no summer of spice.

"Then " Hush: if I go at all,

(It will make them stare and shrink,
It will look so strange at a Fancy Ball,)
I will go as-—————
-Myself, I think!

TWELVE HOURS APART.

He loved me. But he loved, likewise,
This morning's world in bloom and wings;
Ah, does he love the world that lies

In dampness, whispering shadowy things,
Under this little band of moon?

He loves me? Will he fail to see

A phantom hand has touch'd my hair
(And waver'd, withering, over me)
To leave a subtle grayness there,
Below the outer shine of June?

He loves me? Would he call it fair,
The flush'd half-flower he left me, say?
For it has pass'd beneath the glare
And from my bosom drops away,

Shaken into the grass with pain?
He loves me? Well, I do not know.
A song in plumage cross'd the hill
At sunrise when I felt him go-
And song and plumage now are still.
He could not praise the bird again.

TO-DAY.

AH, real thing of bloom and breath,
I can not love you while you stay.
Put on the dim, still charm of death,
Fade to a phantom, float away,
And let me call you Yesterday!

Let empty flower-dust at my feet

Remind me of the buds you wear; Let the bird's quiet show how sweet The far-off singing made the air; And let your dew through frost look fair,

In mourning you I shall rejoice.

Go: for the bitter word may be
A music-in the vanish'd voice;
And on the dead face I may see
How bright its frown has been to me.
Then in the haunted grass I'll sit,

Half careful in your wither'd place,
And watch your lovely shadow flit
Across To-morrow's sunny face,
And vex her with your perfect grace.
So, real thing of bloom and breath,
I weary of you while you stay.
Put on the dim, still charm of death,
Fade to a phantom, float away,
And let me call you Yesterday!

MEETING A MIRROR.

BELOVED of beautiful and eager eyes,
It had its honors from the guests below;
But it went somewhat nearer to the skies
As it grew old, you know.

Still, from the gilded splendor of the day
That Vanity sees shining in its place,

I turned with yearning for the pleased, slow

way

It used to hold my face.