Sunshine and musical sound,

It may spare a foot from its name,
Yet all the same

Superabound.

Soft-named Summer,

Most welcome comer,

Brings almost everything

Over which we dream or sing

Or sigh;

But then Summer wends its way,
To-morrow, to-day, -

Good-bye!

Autumn, — the slow name lingers,
While we likewise flag;

It silences many singers;
Its slow days drag,
Yet hasten at speed

To leave us in chilly need
For Winter to strip indeed.

In all-lack Winter,

Dull of sense and of sound,

We huddle and shiver

Beside our splinter

Of crackling pine,

Snow in sky and snow on ground.

Winter and cold

Can't last for ever!

To-day, to-morrow, the sun will shine;

When we are old,

AN OCTOBER GARDEN.

IN my Autumn garden I was fain

To mourn among my scattered roses;

Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses

To autumn's languid sun and rain,

When all the world is on the wane!

Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,

Nor heard the nightingale in tune.

Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,

You are but coarse compared with roses;

More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses

Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,

That least and last which cold winds balk;
A rose it is though least and last of all,
A rose to me though at the fall.

As the fair changing moon so fair and frail.

Pain is but pleasure,

If we know

It heaps up treasure:
Even so!

Turn, transfigured Pain,

Sweetheart, turn again,

For fair art thou as moon-rise after rain.

UNTIL THE DAY BREAK.

WHEN will the day bring its pleasure?

When will the night bring its rest?

Reaper and gleaner and thresher

Peer toward the east and the west:

The Sower He knoweth, and He knoweth best.

UNTIL THE DAY BREAK.

Meteors flash forth and expire,
Northern lights kindle and pale;
These are the days of desire,

Of eyes looking upward that fail;
Vanishing as a finishing tale.

Bows down the crop in its glory
Tenfold, fifty-fold, hundred-fold;
The millet is ripened and hoary,

The wheat ears are ripened to gold:
:-
Why keep us waiting in dimness and cold?

The Lord of the harvest, He knoweth
Who knoweth the first and the last:

The Sower who patiently soweth,

He scanneth the present and past:

177

He saith, "What thou hast, what remaineth, hold fast."

Yet, Lord, o'er Thy toil-wearied reapers

The storm-clouds hang muttering and frown: On threshers and gleaners and reapers,

O Lord of the harvest, look down;

Oh for the harvest, the shout, and the crown!

"Not so," saith the Lord of the reapers,
The Lord of the first and the last;

"O My toilers, My weary, My weepers,
What ye have, what remaineth, hold fast,
Hide in My heart till the vengeance be past.

I 2

A DAY OF DAYS.

I WISH I could remember that first day,

First hour, first moment of your meeting me; It bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for aught I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee

So dull to mark the budding of my tree

That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand — Did one but know!

CHRISTMAS EVE.

I.

CHRISTMAS hath a darkness

Brighter than the blazing noon,

Christmas hath a chillness

Warmer than the heat of June,

Christmas hath a beauty

Lovelier than the world can show,

For Christmas bringeth Jesus

Brought for us so low.