ALICE CARY.

"THOU THAT DRAWEST ASIDE THE CURTAIN.”

(FROM "THE LOVER'S DIARY.")

THOU that drawest aside the curtain,
Letting in the moon's broad beams,
Give me back the sweet, th' uncertain-
Give, O give me back my dreams.

Take the larger light and grander,
Piercing all things through and through;
Give me back the misty splendour,
Give me back the darling dew.

Take the harvest's ripe profusions,
Golden as the evening skies;
Give me back my soft delusions,
Give me back my wondering eyes.

Take the passionless caresses

All to waveless calm allied;

Give me back my heart's sweet guesses,
And my hopes unsatisfied.

Thou that mak'st the real too real,

O, I pray thee, get thee hence!

Give me back my old ideal,
Give me back my ignorance.

"COME OUT TO THE SIDE OF THE SEA."

"COME OUT TO THE SIDE OF THE SEA."

(FROM "THE LOVER'S DIARY.")

COME out to the side of the sea, my love,
Come out to the side of the sea;

The sun is set, and the stars are met,
And the winds and the waves agree.
But star so bright, nor wave so light,
Brings pleasure or peace to me.
O come, for I sit and wait, alone,
On the rocks by the side of the sea.

I am going down in my memory
To the blessed long ago,

When the golden ground of the buttercups
Was dashed with the daisies' snow;
And I'm thinking of all you said to me,
And if it were true or no,

While I watch the tide as it runs away
From the beach so black and low.

If I should die, my love, my sweet,
Die of your smile forlorn,

Bury me here by the side of the sea,
Where all my joy was born;

Where the waves shall make my lullaby,

And the winds from night till morn

Shall say to the rocks, "He is gone to sleep Where all his joy was born."

PHOEBE CARY.

DREAMS AND REALITIES.

O ROSAMOND, thou fair and good,
And perfect flower of womanhood,
Thou royal rose of June,

Why didst thou droop before thy time?
Why wither in thy first sweet prime?
Why didst thou die so soon?

For, looking backward through my tears On thee and on my wasted years,

I cannot choose but say,

If thou hadst lived to be my guide, Or thou hadst lived and I had died, "Twere better far to-day.

O child of light, O golden head-
Bright sunbeam for one moment shed
Upon life's lonely way-

Why didst thou vanish from our sight?
Could they not spare my little light
From heaven's unclouded day?

O friend so true, O friend so good-
Thou one dream of my maidenhood,
That gave youth all its charms—

What had I done, or what hadst thou,
That through this lonesome world till now
We walk with empty arms?

And yet, had this poor soul been fed
With all it loved and coveted-

Had life been always fair

Would these dear dreams that ne'er depart, That thrill with bliss my inmost heart, Forever tremble there?

If still they kept their earthly place,
The friends I held in my embrace,
And gave to death, alas!

Could I have learned that clear, calm faith
That looks beyond the bounds of death,
And almost longs to pass?

Sometimes I think the things we see
Are shadows of the things to be;
That what we plan we build ;

That every hope that hath been crossed,
And every dream we thought was lost,
In heaven shall be fulfilled;

That even the children of the brain
Have not been born and died in vain,
Though here unclothed and dumb;
But on some brighter, better shore
They live, embodied evermore,
And wait for us to come.

And when on that last day we rise,
Caught up between the earth and skies,

Then shall we hear our Lord

Say, Thou hast done with doubt and death; Henceforth, according to thy faith,

Shall be thy faith's reward.

HAY.

MY CASTLE IN SPAIN.

THERE was never a castle seen
So fair as mine in Spain:
It stands, embowered in green,
Crowning the gentle slope
Of a hill by the Xenil's shore,
And at eve its shade flaunts o'er

The storied Vega plain,

And its towers are hid in the mists of Ilope; And I toil through years of pain

Its glimmering gates to gain.

In visions wild and sweet
Sometimes its courts I greet;

Sometimes in joy its shining halls

I tread with favoured feet;

But never my eyes in the light of day

Were blest with its ivied walls, Where the marble white and the granite gray Turn gold alike when the sunbeams play, When the soft day dimly falls.

I know in its dusky rooms

Are treasures rich and rare:

The spoil of Eastern looms,

And whatever of bright and fair Painters divine have caught and won From the vault of Italy's air: White gods in Phidian stone