What is to thee the throstle's song,

Who sings of love, but not of mine? Oh, turn from the Tyrrhenian Sea! Come back to me! Come back to me!

THE FLIGHT FROM THE

CONVENT

I SEE the star-lights quiver,
Like jewels in the river;
The bank is hid with sedge;
What if I slip the edge?

I thought I knew the way
By night as well as day:
But how a lover goes astray!

The place is somewhat lonely —
I mean for just one only;
I brought the boat ashore
An hour ago or more.

Well, I will sit and wait;

She fixed the hour at eight:
Good angels! bring her not too late!

To-morrow's tongues that name her
Will hardly dare to blame her:
A lily still is white

Through all the dark of night:

The morning sun shall show
A bride as pure as snow,

Whose wedding all the world shall know.

O God! that I should gain her!
But what can so detain her?
Hist, yelping cur! thy bark
Will fright her in the dark.

What! striking nine? that 's fast! Is some one walking past? -Oho! so thou art come at last!

But why thy long delaying?
Alack! thy beads and praying!
If thou, a saint, dost hope
To kneel and kiss the Pope,

Then I, a sinner, know
Where sweeter kisses grow -
Nay, now, just once before we go!

Nay, twice, and by St. Peter
The second was the sweeter !
Quick now, and in the boat!
Good-by, old tower and moat!

May mildew from the sky Drop blindness on the eye That lurks to watch our going by!

She brought it in her tiny hand
To see if I would understand,
And wondered when I made reply,
"You've found a baby butterfly."
"A butterfly is not like this,"
With doubtful look she answered me.
So then I told her what would be
Some day within the chrysalis;
How, slowly, in the dull brown thing
Now still as death, a spotted wing,
And then another, would unfold,
Till from the empty shell would fly
A pretty creature, by and by,
All radiant in blue and gold.

"And will it, truly?" questioned she
Her laughing lips and eager eyes
All in a sparkle of surprise-
"And shall your little Mädchen see?
"She shall!" I said. How could I tell

That ere the worm within its shell
Its gauzy, splendid wings had spread,
My little Mädchen would be dead?

To-day the butterfly has flown, -
She was not here to see it fly,
And sorrowing I wonder why
The empty shell is mine alone.
Perhaps the secret lies in this:
I too had found a chrysalis,

And Death that robbed me of delight
Was but the radiant creature's flight!

I BROKE one day a slender stem,
Thick-set with little golden horns,
Half bud, half blossom, and a gem

Such as one finds in autumn morns When all the grass with dew is strung On every fairy bugle hung.

Careless, I dropped it, in a place

Where no light shone, and so forgot Its delicate, dewy, flowering grace,

Till presently from the dark spot A charming sense of sweetness came, That woke an answering sense of shame.

Quickly I thought, O heart of mine,

A lesson for thee plain to read: Thou needest not that light should shine, Or fellow-men thy virtues heed: Enough if haply this be so — That thou hast sweetness to bestow !