If I might see another Spring-
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in “if”—

If I might see another Spring
I'd laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I'd use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.

DID

BIRD OR BEAST?

any

bird come flying

After Adam and Eve,

When the door was shut against them And they sat down to grieve?

I think not Eve's peacock
Splendid to see,

And I think not Adam's eagle;

But a dove may be.

Did any beast come pushing
Through the thorny hedge
Into the thorny thistly world,
Out from Eden's edge?

I think not a lion,

Though his strength is such; But an innocent loving lamb.

May have done as much.

If the dove preached from her bough, And the lamb from his sod;

The lamb and the dove

Were preachers sent from God.

WHILE

EVE.

I sit at the door,

Sick to gaze within,

Mine eye weepeth sore

For sorrow and sin:

As a tree my sin stands

To darken all lands;

Death is the fruit it bore.

"How have Eden bowers grown
Without Adam to bend them!
How have Eden flowers blown,
Squandering their sweet breath,
Without me to tend them!
The Tree of Life was ours,
Tree twelvefold-fruited,
Most lofty tree that flowers,
Most deeply rooted:

I chose the Tree of Death.

"Hadst thou but said me nay,

Adam, my brother,

I might have pined away;
I, but none other:

God might have let thee stay
Safe in our garden,
By putting me away
Beyond all pardon.

"I, Eve, sad mother
Of all who must live,
I, not another,

Plucked bitterest fruit to give
My friend, husband, lover.
O wanton eyes run over;
Who but I should grieve?---
Cain hath slain his brother:
Of all who must die mother.
Miserable Eve!"

Thus she sat weeping,
Thus Eve our mother,
Where one lay sleeping
Slain by his brother.
Greatest and least

Each piteous beast
To hear her voice
Forgot his joys

And set aside his feast.

The mouse paused in his walk And dropped his wheaten stalk Grave cattle wagged their heads In rumination :

The eagle gave a cry
From his cloud station :

Larks on thyme beds

Forbore to mount or sing;
Bees drooped upon the wing;
The raven perched on high
Forgot his ration;

The conies in their rock,

A feeble nation,

Quaked sympathetical;

The mocking-bird left off to mock;

Huge camels knelt as if

In deprecation;

The kind hart's tears were falling:

Chattered the wistful stork;

Dove-voices with a dying fall

Cooed desolation

Answering grief by grief.

Only the serpent in the dust.
Wriggling and crawling,

Grinned an evil grin and thrust
His tongue out with its fork.

A

A DAUGHTER OF EVE.

FOOL I was to sleep at noon,

And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;

A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,

I weep as I have never wept :
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future Spring
And sun-warmed sweet to-morrow :-
Stripped bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

A PEAL OF BELLS.

TRIKE the bells wantonly,

STR

Tinkle tinkle well;

Bring me wine, bring me flowers,
Ring the silver bell.