THE CROWDED STREET. LET me move slowly through the street, Amid the sound of steps that beat The murmuring walks like autumn rain. How fast the flitting figures come! The mild, the fierce, the stony face; Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some Where secret tears have left their trace. They pass to toil, to strife, to rest; To chambers where the funeral guest And some to happy homes repair, Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, With mute caresses shall declare The tenderness they cannot speak. And some, who walk in calmness here, Shall shudder as they reach the door Where one who made their dwelling dear, Its flower, its light, is seen no more. Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, Keen son of trade, with eager brow! Who of this crowd to-night shall tread Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold dark hours, how slow the light! And some, who flaunt amid the throng, Shall hide in dens of shame to-night. Each, where his tasks or pleasures call, There is who heeds, who holds them all, In his large love and boundless thought. These struggling tides of life that seem That rolls to its appointed end. THE WHITE-FOOTED DEER. It was a hundred years ago, When, by the woodland ways, The traveller saw the wild deer drink, the birchen sprays. Or crop Beneath a hill, whose rocky side And fenced a cottage from the wind, She only came when on the cliffs And no man knew the secret haunts In which she walked by day. White were her feet, her forehead showed A spot of silvery white, That seemed to glimmer like a star In autumn's hazy night. 4 And here, when sang the whippoorwill, And here her rustling steps were heard But when the broad midsummer moon Beside the silver-footed deer There grazed a spotted fawn. The cottage dame forbade her son To aim the rifle here; "It were a sin," she said, "to harm "This spot has been my pleasant home She feeds before our door. A thousand moons ago; They never raise the war-whoop here, And never twang the bow. "I love to watch her as she feeds, And think that all is well |