Speeds on the shortest day, With its bleak raw wind Lays the last leaves low, Brings back the nightly frosts, THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. H OW comes it, Flora, that, whenever we Still hold the Queen of Hearts? I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze, Your ways are secret still. I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again; That Queen still falls to you. I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel : "There should be one card more," You said, and searched the floor. I cheated once: I made a private notch In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch; Yet such another back Deceived me in the pack: The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown This notch, not of my doing, Misled me to my ruin. It baffles me to puzzle out the clew, Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you: Natural affinity. I ONE DAY. WILL tell you when they met : In the mossful turf were set, While meeting birds made haste to sing And build with right good will. I will tell you when they parted : When plenteous Autumn sheaves were brown, Then they parted heavy-hearted; Only to them those days of yore When shall they meet? I cannot tell, Indeed, when they shall meet again, Except some day in Paradise : For this they wait, one waits in pain. Beyond the sea of death love lies Forever, yesterday, to-day; Angels shall ask them, "Is it well?" And they shall answer, "Yea." A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW. ‘ROAK, croak, croak,” "CR Thus the Raven spoke, Perched on his crooked tree As hoarse as hoarse could be. Shun him and fear him, Lest the Bridegroom hear him; Scout him and rout him With his ominous eye about him. Yet, "Croak, croak, croak," Still tolled from the oak; From that fatal black bird, Sink, O ship," croaked the Raven: In a far foreign land Upon the wave-edged sand, Across the glittering sea. "If we could clasp our sister," Three say, "now we have missed her!" "If we could kiss our daughter!" Two sigh across the water. O, the ship sails fast, With silken flags at the mast, And the home-wind blows soft; Chuckling and choking, Croaking, croaking, croaking:- On a sloped sandy beach, Which the spring-tide billows reach, Stand a watchful throng Who have hoped and waited long. "Fie on this ship, that tarries Whilst the Raven perched at ease Tolled from his iron throat: "No father, no mother, But I have a sable brother: He sees where ocean flows to, And he knows what he knows, too." A day and a night They kept watch worn and white; A night and a day For the swift ship on its way: For the Bride and her maidens, On either shore, some Grows certain though unsaid. Morrow after morrow. |