Take back your doubtful wisdom, and renew
My early foolish freshness of the dunce,

Whose simple instinct guessed the heavens at once.

RICHARD REALF.

THE TOYS

My little son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,
I struck him, and dismiss'd

With hard words and unkiss'd,

His mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,

But found him slumbering deep,

With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;

For, on a table drawn beside his head,

He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach,

And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells,

And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,

To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray'd

To God, I wept, and said:

"Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,

Not vexing Thee in death,

And Thou rememberest of what toys

We made our joys,

How weakly understood

Thy great commanded good,

Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,

Thou 'It leave Thy wrath, and say,

'I will be sorry for their childishness.""

COVENTRY PATMORE.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumèd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that never more may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane

That sweeps his great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,

Knew well the watchword of that day

Was "Victory or death."

Long has the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;

Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,

Such odds his strength could bide.

'T was in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their fathers' gore
His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.

Full many a norther's breath had swept O'er Angostura's plain

And long the pitying sky has wept
Above the mouldering slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air;

Your own proud land's heroic soil

Shall be your fitter grave;

She claims from war his richest spoil-
The ashes of her brave.

So, 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast,
On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky

Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by

The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone,
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.

THEODORE O'HARA.

SANDS OF DEE

"O MARY, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee!"

The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see;

The blinding mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

"O, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,—

A tress of golden hair,

Of drowned maiden's hair,—

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes of Dee!"

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,—

The cruel, crawling foam,

The cruel, hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea;

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee.

CHARLES KINGSLEY,

HANNAH BINDING SHOES

POOR lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window binding shoes.

Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting stitching in a mournful muse.
Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree;
Spring and winter
Hannah's at the window binding shoes.

Not a neighbor
Passing nod or answer will refuse
To her whisper,

"Is there from the fishers any news ?"
Oh, her heart 's adrift with one
On an endless voyage gone!

Night and morning

Hannah 's at the window binding shoes.
Fair young Hannah

Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wooes;
Hale and clever,

For a willing heart and hand he sues.
May-day skies are all aglow,
And the waves are laughing so!
For her wedding

Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing;

Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon cooes.
Hannah shudders,

For the mild southwester mischief brews.
Round the rocks of Marblehead,
Outward bound a schooner sped;
Silent, lonesome,

Hannah 's at the window binding shoes.
'T is November;

Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews;
From Newfoundland,

Not a sail returning will she lose,
Whispering hoarsely, "Fishermen,
Have you, have you

heard of Ben ?"

Old with watching,

Hannah 's at the window binding shoes.

Twenty winters

Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views ;

Twenty seasons

Never one has brought her any news.

Still her dim eyes silently

Chase the white sails o'er the sea ;.

Hopeless, faithful,

Hannah 's at the window binding shoes.

LUCY LARCOM.

THREE ROSES

THREE roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down
Each with its loveliness as with a crown,

Drooped in a florist's window in a town.

The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,

Like flower on flower that night on beauty's breast.