That drenched the leaves that loved it so
In orchard-lands of Long Ago!
O memory! alight and sing
Where rosy-bellied pippins cling,
And golden russets glint and gleam
As in the old Arabian dream
The fruits of that enchanted tree
The glad Aladdin robbed for me!
And, drowsy winds, awake and fan
My blood as when it overran
A heart ripe as the apples grow
In orchard-lands of Long Ago.

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

ALONE BY THE HEARTH

HERE, in my snug little fire-lit chamber,
Sit I alone;

And, as I gaze in the coals, I remember
Days long agone.

Saddening it is when the night has descended,
Thus to sit here,

Pensively musing on episodes ended
Many a year.

Still in my visions a golden-hair'd glory

Flits to and fro;

She whom I loved

Dead, long ago.

but 't is just the old story:

"T is but a wraith of love; yet I linger
(Thus passion errs),

Foolishly kissing the ring on my finger —
Once it was hers.

Nothing has changed since her spirit departed,
Here, in this room,

Save I, who, weary, and half broken-hearted,
Sit in the gloom.

Loud 'gainst the window the winter rain dashes,
Dreary and cold;

Over the floor the red fire-light flashes,

Just as of old.

Just as of old - but the embers are scatter'd,
Whose ruddy blaze

Flash'd o'er the floor where the fairy feet patter'd
In other days!

Then, her dear voice, like a silver chime ringing,
Melted away;

Often these walls have re-echo'd her singing,

Now hush'd for aye!

Why should love bring nought but sorrow, I wonder?
Everything dies!

Time and death, sooner or later, must sunder

Holiest ties.

Years have roll'd by; I am wiser and older
Wiser, but yet

Not till my heart and its feelings grow colder,
Can I forget.

So, in my snug little fire-lit chamber,

Sit I alone;

And, as I gaze in the coals, I remember

Days long agone!

GEORGE ARNOLD.

THE WISTFUL DAYS

WHAT is there wanting in the Spring?
The air is soft as yesteryear;
The happy-nested green is here,
And half the world is on the wing.
The morning beckons, and like balm
Are westward waters blue and calm,
Yet something's wanting in the Spring.

What is wanting in the Spring?
O April, lover to us all,

What is so poignant in thy thrall
When children's merry voices ring?
What haunts us in the cooing dove
More subtle than the speech of Love,
What nameless lack or loss of Spring?

Let Youth go dally with the Spring,

Call her the dear, the fair, the young;
And all her graces ever sung

Let him, once more rehearsing, sing.
They know, who keep a broken tryst,
Till something from the Spring be miss'd

We have not truly known the Spring.

ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON.

AT BEST

THE faithful helm commands the keel,
From port to port fair breezes blow;
But the ship must sail the convex sea,
Nor may she straighter go.

So, man to man; in fair accord,

On thought and will the winds may wait;
But the world will bend the passing word,
Though its shortest course be straight.
From soul to soul the shortest line

At best will bended be;

The ship that holds the straightest course
Still sails the convex sea.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY

SHELLEY

Aн, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at

My starting moves your laughter!

I cross'd a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breath of it shines alone

'Mid the blank miles round about :
For there I pick'd up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.

ROBERT BROWNING.

BUGLE SONG

THE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story
The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O, hark! O, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill, or field, or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

EGYPTIAN SERENADE

SING again the song you sung
When we were together young,
When there were but you and I
Underneath the summer sky.

(The Princess).

Sing the song, and o'er and o'er,
Though I know that nevermore
Will it seem the song you sung
When we were together young.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

CHIMNEY SWALLOWS

I SLEPT in an old homestead by the sea:

And in their chimney nest,

At night the swallows told home-lore to me,
As to a friendly guest.

A liquid twitter, low, confiding, glad,
From many glossy throats,

Was all the voice; and yet its accents had

A poem's golden notes.

Quaint legends of the fireside and the shore,

And sounds of festal cheer,

And tones of those whose tasks of love are o'er,
Were breathed into mine ear;

And wondrous lyrics, felt but never sung,
The heart's melodious bloom;

And histories, whose perfumes long have clung
About each hallowed room.

I heard the dream of lovers, as they found

At last their hour of bliss,

And fear and pain and long suspense were drown'd
In one heart-healing kiss.

I heard the lullaby of babes, that grew
To sons and daughters fair;

And childhood's angels, singing as they flew,
And sobs of secret prayer.

I heard the voyagers who seem'd to sail
Into the sapphire sky,

And sad, weird voices in the autumn gale,
As the swift ships went by ;

And sighs suppress'd and converse soft and low
About the sufferer's bed,

And what is utter'd when the stricken know
That the dear one is dead;

And steps of those who, in the Sabbath light,
Muse with transfigured face;

And hot lips pressing, through the long, dark night,
The pillow's empty place;

And fervent greetings of old friends, whose path
In youth had gone apart,

But to each other brought life's aftermath,

With uncorroded heart.

The music of the seasons touch'd the strain,
Bird-joy and laugh of flowers,

The orchard's bounty and the yellow grain,
Snow storm and sunny showers;

And secrets of the soul that doubts and

And gropes in regions dim,

yearns

Till, meeting Christ with raptured eye, discerns

Its perfect life in Him.

So, thinking of the Master and his tears,
And how the birds are kept,

I sank in arms that folded me from fears,
And like an infant, slept.

HORATIO NELSON POWERS.

THE WANDERER *

UPON a mountain height, far from the sea,
I found a shell;

And to my listening ear this lonely thing

Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing,

Ever a tale of ocean seem'd to tell.

How came this shell upon the mountain height ?

Ah, who can say

*From "A Little Book of Western Verse "; copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.