Ah, sure bed and house,

For better and worse, for life and death:

Goal won with shortened breath :

Come, crown our vows.

BRIDE.

One moment, one more word,
While my heart beats still,
While my breath is stirred
By my fainting will.

O friend forsake me not,
Forget not as I forgot :

But keep thy heart for me,

Keep thy faith true and bright;
Through the lone cold winter night
Perhaps I may come to thee.

BRIDEGROOM.

Nay, peace, my darling, peace:

Let these dreams and terrors cease:

Who spoke of death or change or aught but ease?

GHOST.

O fair frail sin,

O poor harvest gathered in!
Thou shalt visit him again
To watch his heart grow cold;
To know the gnawing pain

I knew of old ;

To see one much more fair

Fill his heart, his children bear:
While thou and I together
In the outcast weather
Toss and howl and spin.

A SUMMER WISH.

L

IVE all thy sweet life througl. Sweet Rose, dew-sprent, Drop down thine evening dew To gather it anew

When day is bright:

I fancy thou wast meant Chiefly to give delight.

Sing in the silent sky,

Glad soaring bird;

Sing out thy notes on high
To sunbeam straying by

Or passing cloud;

Heedless if thou art heard

Sing thy full song aloud.

O that it were with me
As with the flower;

Blooming on its own tree
For butterfly and bee

Its summer morns:

That I might bloom mine hour
A rose in spite of thorns.

O that my work were done
As birds' that soar

Rejoicing in the sun :
That when my time is run
And daylight too,

I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

I

AN APPLE GATHERING.

PLUCKED pink blossoms from mine apple-tree,

And wore them all that evening in my hair: Then in due season when I went to see

I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass

As I had come I went the selfsame track: My neighbors mocked me while they saw me pass So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,

Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer; Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky, Their mother's home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.

Ah, Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth

Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane :
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!

I let my neighbors pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.

TW

SONG.

WO doves upon the selfsame branch,
Two lilies on a single stem,

Two butterflies upon one flower :-
O happy they who look on them.

Who look upon them hand in hand

Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand

And never give a thought to night.

O

MAUDE CLARE.

UT of the church she followed them
With a lofty step and mien:

His bride was like a village maid,
Maude Clare was like a queen.

"Son Thomas," his lady mother said,
With smiles, almost with tears:
"May Nell and you but live as true
As we have done for years;

"Your father thirty years ago
Had just your tale to tell;
But he was not so pale as you,
Nor I so pale as Nell."

My lord was pale with inward strife,
And Nell was pale with pride;
My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare
Or ever he kissed the bride.

"Lo, I have brought my gift, my lord, Have brought my gift," she said: "To bless the hearth, to bless the board, To bless the marriage-bed.