66

Nay, I have another rose sprung in another garden, Another rose which sweetens all the world for me. Be you a tenderer mistress and be you a warier warden Of your rose, as sweet as mine, and full as fair to

see."

66

Nay, a bud once plucked there is no reviving,

Nor is it worth your wearing now, nor worth indeed

my own;

The dead to the dead, and the living to the living.

66

It's time I go within, for it's time now you were gone."

Good-bye, Milly Brandon, I shall not forget you, Though it be good-bye between us for ever from

to-day;

I could almost wish to-day that I had never met you, And I'm true to you in this one word that I say."

66

Good-bye, Walter. I can guess which thornless rose

you covet;

Long may it bloom and prolong its sunny morn : Yet as for my one thorny rose, I do not cease to love it, And if it is no more a flower I love it as a thorn."

A LIFE'S PARALLELS.

TEVER on this side of the grave again,

NEVER

On this side of the river,

On this side of the garner of the grain,

Ever while time flows on and on and on,

That narrow noiseless river,

Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan, Ever,

Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,
But looking back, ah never!

Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuing

Ever.

AT LAST.

M

ANY have sung of love a root of bane:

While to my mind a root of balm it is,

For love at length breeds love; sufficient bliss For life and death and rising up again.

Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain,
Love will grow plain with all its mysteries;
Nor shall we need to fetch from over seas
Wisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain.
Love in our borders, love within our heart,
Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest,
Ended for ever life's unending quest,

Ended for ever effort, change and fear :
no more that better part

Love all in all;

Purchased, but at the cost of all things here.

GOLDEN SILENCES.

HERE is silence that saith, "Ah me !

TH

There is silence that nothing saith;

One the silence of life forlorn,

One the silence of death;

One is, and the other shall be.

One we know and have known for long,
One we know not, but we shall know,

All we who have ever been born;

Even so, be it so,

There is silence, despite a song.

Sowing day is a silent day,

Resting night is a silent night;

But whoso reaps the ripened corn

Shall shout in his delight,

While silences vanish away.

I

IN THE WILLOW SHADE.

SAT beneath a willow tree,

Where water falls and calls;.

While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.

Who set their heart upon a hope

That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
The sun's wan looking-glass.

Who set their will upon a whim

Clung to through good and ill,

Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,

Or hit or miss their will.

All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;

Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.