"Greeting!" "And may you speak, indeed?"

All in the dark her sense grew clearer; She knew that she had, for company, All day an angel near her.

"May you tell us of the life divine,

To us unknown, to angels given?" "Count me your earthly joys, and I May teach you those of heaven."

"They say the pleasures of earth are vain ;
Delusions all, to lure from duty;
But while God hangs his bow in the rain,
Can I help my joy in beauty?

"And while he quickens the air with song, My breaths with scent, my fruits with flavor,

Will he, dear angel, count as sin My life in sound and savor?

"See, at our feet the glow-worm shines, Lo! in the east a star arises;

And thought may climb from worm to world

Forever through fresh surprises:

"And thought is joy. . . . And, hark! in the vale

Music, and merry steps pursuing; They leap in the dance, -a soul in my blood

Cries out, Awake, be doing!

"Action is joy; or power at play,

Or power at work in world or emprises: Action is life; part from the deed, More from the doing rises."

"And are these all?" She flushed in the dark. "These are not all.

I have a lover; At sound of his voice, at touch of his hand, The cup of my life runs over.

"Once, unknowing, we looked and neared,

And doubted, and neared, and rested

never,

Till life seized life, as flame meets flame, To escape no more forever.

"Lover and husband; then was love

The wine of my life, all life enhancing: Now 't is my bread, too needful and sweet To be kept for feast-day chancing.

VESPERS.

WHEN I have said my quiet say,
When I have sung my little song,
How sweetly, sweetly dies the day
The valley and the hill along;
How sweet the summons, "Come away,"
That calls me from the busy throng!

I thought beside the water's flow
Awhile to lie beneath the leaves,
I thought in Autumn's harvest glow
To rest my head upon the sheaves;
But, lo! methinks the day was brief
And cloudy; flower, nor fruit, nor leaf
I bring, and yet accepted, free,
And blest, my Lord, I come to thee.

What matter now for promise lost,
Through blast of spring or summer rains!
What matter now for purpose crost,
For broken hopes and wasted pains;
What if the olive little yields,
What if the grape be blighted? Thine
The corn upon a thousand fields,
Upon a thousand hills the vine.

Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest
In poverty beloved to be!
Less lowly is my choice confessed,
I love the rich in loving Thee!
My spirit bare before thee stands,
I bring no gift, I ask no sign,

I come to thee with empty hands,
The surer to be filled from thine!

273

O, SWEET and fair! O, rich and rare! That day so long ago.

The autumn sunshine everywhere,

The heather all aglow,

The ferns were clad in cloth of gold,

The waves sang on the shore.
Such suns will shine, such waves will sing
Forever evermore.

O, fit and few! O, tried and true!
The friends who met that day.
Each one the other's spirit knew,

And so in earnest play

The hours flew past, until at last

The twilight kissed the shore. We said, "Such days shall come again Forever evermore."

LUCY LARCOM.

[U. s. A.]

A STRIP OF BLUE.

I Do not own an inch of land,
But all I see is mine,
The orchard and the mowing-fields,
The lawns and gardens fine.
The winds my tax-collectors are,

They bring me tithes divine,
Wild scents and subtle essences,
A tribute rare and free:
And more magnificent than all,
My window keeps for me
A glimpse of blue immensity, —
A little strip of sea.

Richer am I than he who owns
Great fleets and argosies;
I have a share in every ship
Won by the inland breeze
To loiter on yon airy road
Above the apple-trees.

I freight them with my untold dreams,
Each bears my own picked crew;
And nobler cargoes wait for them
Than ever India knew,
My ships that sail into the East
Across that outlet blue.

Sometimes they seem like living shapes,~
The people of the sky,
Guests in white raiment coming down
From Heaven, which is close by:
I call them by familiar names,
As one by one draws nigh,
So white, so light, so spirit-like,
From violet mists they bloom!
The aching wastes of the unknown
Are half reclaimed from gloom,
Since on life's hospitable sea

All souls find sailing-room.

The ocean grows a weariness

With nothing else in sight; Its east and west, its north and south, Spread out from morn to night: We miss the warm, caressing shore, Its brooding shade and light. A part is greater than the whole; By hints are mysteries told; The fringes of eternity,

God's sweeping garment-fold, In that bright shred of glimmering sea, I reach out for, and hold.