"Yea, though you're taller by the head,

More wise, and much more fair;

I'll love him till he loves me best,

Me best of all, Maude Clare."

ECHO.

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet ;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death: Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath :

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago!

MY SECRET.

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I :

Perhaps some day, who knows?

But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows,

And you're too curious: fie!

You want to hear it? well:

Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none :

Suppose there is no secret after all,

But only just my fun.

To-day's a nipping day, a biting day;

In which one wants a shawl,

A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:

I cannot ope to every one who taps,

And let the draughts come whistling through my

hall;

Come bounding and surrounding me,

Come buffeting, astounding me,

Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.

I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows

His nose to Russian snows

To be pecked at by every wind that blows?

You would not peck? I thank you for good will,

Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust

March with its peck of dust,

Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,

Nor even May, whose flowers

One frost may wither through the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day, When drowsy birds sing less and less,

And golden fruit is ripening to excess,