The second rose, as virginal and fair,
Shrank in the tangles of a harlot's hair.

The third, a widow, with new grief made wild,
Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

INTO THE WORLD AND OUT INTO the world he looked with sweet surprise; The children laughed so when they saw his eyes. Into the world a rosy hand in doubt

He reached a pale hand took one rose-bud out.

"And that was all-quite all!" No, surely! The children cried so when his eyes were shut.

THE CRADLE

But

SALLIE M. B. PIATT.

How steadfastly she 'd worked at it!
How lovingly had drest

With all her would-be mother's wit

That little rosy nest!

How longingly she'd hung on it!
It sometimes seemed, she said,
There lay beneath its coverlet,
A little sleeping head.

He came at last, the tiny guest,
Ere bleak December fled;
That rosy nest he never prest -
Her coffin was his bed.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

LOVESIGHT

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes

Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?

Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone),
Close-kiss'd and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-

How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perish'd leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

ANGELUS SONG

ONCE at the Angelus

(Ere I was dead),
Angels all glorious,
Čame to my bed ;-
Angels in blue and white,
Crowned on the Head.

One was the Friend I left
Stark in the snow;
One was the Wife that died
Long-long ago;

One was the Love I lost

How could she know ?

One had my mother's eyes,
Wistful and mild;

One had my father's face;

One was a Child;

All of them bent to me,

Bent down and smiled.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME

WHEN the grass shall cover me,
Head to foot where I am lying;
When not any wind that blows,
Summer blooms nor winter snows,
Shall awake me to your sighing ;
Close above me as you pass,
You will say, "How kind she was,
You will say, "How true she was,
When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me,
Holden close to Earth's warm bosom;
While I laugh, or weep, or sing

Nevermore for anything;

You will find in blade and blossom,
Sweet, small voices, odorous,
Tender pleaders in my cause,
That shall speak me as I was
When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me!
Ah, beloved, in my sorrow
Very patient, I can wait -
Knowing that or soon or late,"
There will dawn a clearer morrow;
When your heart will moan,
"Alas!
Now I know how true she was;
Now I know how dear she was,'
When the grass grows over me!

INA COOLBRITH.

WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST

WHEN I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain :

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

TWO MYSTERIES

["In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man's face. 'You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?' said he, and added, 'We don't, either.'"] We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still; The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill; The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call; The strange white solitude of peace that settles over all. We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain; This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again; We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go, Nor why we 're left to wonder still, nor why we do not know. But this we know: Our loved and dead, if they should come this day

--

Should come and ask us,

"What is life?" not one of us could say.

Life is a mystery, as deep as ever death can be ;

Yet, O, how dear it is to us, this life we live and see!

Then might they say - these vanished ones and blessed is the

thought,

"So death is sweet to us, beloved! though we may show you

naught;

We may not to the quick reveal the mystery of death
Ye cannot tell us, if ye would, the mystery of breath."

The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
So those who enter death must go as little children sent.
Nothing is known. But I believe that God is overhead;
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.

MARY MAPES DODGE.

"O MITHER, DINNA DEE!"
"O BAIRN, when I am dead,

How shall ye keep frae harm?
What hand will gie ye bread ?
What fire will keep ye warm?

How shall ye dwell on earth awa' frae me ?”
"O mither, dinna dee!"

"O bairn, by night or day

I hear nae sounds ava',

But voices of winds that blaw,

And the voices of ghaists that say,
Come awa'! come awa'!

The Lord that made the wind and made the sea
Is hard on my bairn and me,

And I melt in his breath like snaw."

"O mither, dinna dee!"

"O bairn, it is but closing up the een,

And lying down never to rise again.

Many a strong man's sleeping hae I seen,-
There is nae pain!

I'm weary, weary, and I scarce ken why;

My summer has gone by,

And sweet were sleep, but for the sake o' thee "

"O mither, dinna dee!"

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

TO ONE IN PARADISE

THOU wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine:

A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast !

A voice out of the Future cries,
"On! on!" - but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast.

For, alas! alas! with me

The light of Life is o'er!

No more - no more no more
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar.

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy gray eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams-

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams!

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

MY HEART AND I

ENOUGH! we 're tired, my heart and I;
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish the name were carved for us;
The moss reprints more tenderly

The hard types of the mason's knife,
As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life,
With which we 're tired, my heart and I.

You see we 're tired, my heart and I;
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colors could not fly.

We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we 're tired, my heart and I.

How tired we feel, my heart and I;

We seem of no use in the world; Our fancies hang gray and uncurled About men's eyes indifferently;