WINTER RAIN.

VERY valley drinks,

EVE

Every dell and hollow:

Where the kind rain sinks and sinks,

Green of Spring will follow.

Yet a lapse of weeks

Buds will burst their edges,

Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks,

In the woods and hedges;

Weave a bower of love

For birds to meet each other,

Weave a canopy above

Nest and egg and mother.

But for fattening rain

We should have no flowers,
Never a bud or leaf again
But for soaking showers;

Never a mated bird

In the rocking tree-tops, Never indeed a flock or herd To graze upon the lea-crops.

Lambs so woolly white,

Sheep the sun-bright leas on,

They could have no grass to bite

But for rain in season.

We should find no moss
In the shadiest places,
Find no waving meadow-grass
Pied with broad-eyed daisies:

But miles of barren sand,

With never a son or daughter,
Not a lily on the land,

Or lily on the water.

W

A DIRGE.

HY were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo's calling,

Or when grapes are green in the cluster,

Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying

From summer dying.

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples' dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,

And all winds go sighing

For sweet things dying.

CONFLUENTS.

S rivers seek the sea,

As

Much more deep than they,

So my soul seeks thee

Far away:

As running rivers moan
On their course alone,

So I moan

Left alone.

As the delicate rose

To the sun's sweet strength Doth herself unclose,

Breadth and length:

So spreads my heart to thee
Unveiled utterly,

I to thee
Utterly.

As morning dew exhales

Sunwards pure and free,

So my spirit fails

After thee:

As dew leaves not a trace
On the green earth's face;

I, no trace

On thy face.

Its goal the river knows,
Dewdrops find a way,
Sunlight cheers the rose
In her day:

Shall I, lone sorrow past,
Find thee at the last?

Sorrow past,

Thee at last?

NOBLE SISTERS.

"NOW

WOW did you mark a falcon,
Sister dear, sister dear,

Flying toward my window

In the morning cool and clear? With jingling bells about her neck, But what beneath her wing?

It may have been a ribbon,

Or it may have been a ring."

"I marked a falcon swooping
At the break of day:

And for your love, my sister dove,
I 'frayed the thief away."—

"Or did you spy a ruddy hound,

Sister fair and tall,

Went snuffing round my garden bound,

Or crouched by my bower wall?

With a silken leash about his neck;
But in his mouth may be

A chain of gold and silver links,

Or a letter writ to me."-

"I heard a hound, high-born sister,
Stood baying at the moon :

I rose and drove him from your wall
Lest you should wake too soon."

“Or did you meet a pretty page Sat swinging on the gate;

Sat whistling, whistling like a bird, may be slept too late :

Or

With eaglets broidered on his cap,
And eaglets on his glove?

If you had turned his pockets out,
You had found some pledge of love."
“I met him at this daybreak,

Scarce the east was red:

Lest the creaking gate should anger you,
I packed him home to bed."

"O patience, sister. Did you see
A young man tall and strong,
Swift-footed to uphold the right
And to uproot the wrong,

Come home across the desolate sea

To woo me for his wife?

And in his heart my heart is locked,

And in his life my life."