A BIRTHDAY.

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickest fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it with doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

THE WORLD.

By day she woos me, soft, exceeding fair;
But all night, as the moon, so changeth she;
Loathsome and foul, with hideous leprosy

And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.
By day she wooes me to the outer air,

Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety;

But through the night, a beast she grins at meA very monster void of love and prayer. By day she stands a lie; by night she stands In all the naked horror of the truth,

With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.

Is this a friend, indeed, that I should sell My soul to her, give her my life and youth Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?

REMEMBER.

REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned;
Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for awhile
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

VANITY OF VANITIES.

471

Aн, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
Ah, woe is me for glory that is past;
Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!
So saith the sinking heart; and so again
It shall say till the mighty angel-blast
Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast,
And showering down the stars like sudden rain.
And evermore men shall go fearfully,

Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;
And ancient men shall lie down wearily,
And strong men shall rise up in weariness;
Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly,
Saying one to another: How vain it is!
REST.

O EARTH, lie heavily upon her eyes;

Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies;

Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth
Of all that irked her from the hour of birth
With stillness that is almost paradise.
Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,
Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of eternity

Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
And when she wakes she will not think it long.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING.

LOVE that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face;
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and gray.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,

But felt my quickened heart leap in its place, Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,

Caught echoes of all music passed away.

Was this indeed to meet? I mind me yet, In youth we met when hope and love were quick, We parted with hope dead, but love alive;

I mind me how we parted when heart sick, Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive; Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

AN APPLE GATHERING.

I PLUCKED pink apple blossoms from mine apple

tree,

And wore them all that evening in my hair; Then in due season when I went to see,

I found no apples there.

'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew, Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;

The sails are aback from clew to clew,

And now is the moment for "MAIN-SAIL, HAUL!"

And the heavy yards, like a baby's toy,
By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung;
She holds her way, and I look with joy

For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
"LET GO AND HAUL!" "T is the last command,
And the head-sails fill to the blast once more;
Astern and to leeward lies the land,

With its breakers white on the shingly shore. What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall? I steady the helm for the open sea; The first mate clamors, "BELAY THERE, ALL!” And the captain's breath once more comes free. And so off-shore let the good ship fly;

Little care I how the gusts may blow,

In my fo'castle bunk in a jacket dry,

Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below. WALTER MITCHELL.

By the Powder-House Green seven others fell in; At Nahum's the men from the saw mill came down;

So that when Jabez Bland gave the word of command,

And said, "Forward, March!" there marched forward the town.

Parson Wilderspin stood by the side of the road, And he took off his hat, and he said, "Let us pray!

O Lord, God of Might, let thine Angels of Light Lead thy children to-night to the Glories of Day! And let Thy Stars fight all the Foes of the Right, As the Stars fought of old against Sisera."

And from heaven's high arch those stars blessed our march,

Till the last of them faded in twilight away, And with morning's bright beam, by the bank of the stream,

Half the country marched in, and we heard Davis say:

"On the King's own highway I may travel all day, And no man hath warrant to stop me," says he. "I've no man that's afraid, and I'll march at their head;

Then he turned to the boys-"Forward, March! Follow me."

And we marched as he said, and the fifer, he played

The old "White Cockade," and he played it

right well;

We saw Davis fall dead, but no man was afraidThat bridge we'd have had, though a thousand men fell.

This opened the play, and it lasted all day, We made Concord too hot for the Red Coats to stay;

Down the Lexington way we stormed-black, white, and gray;

We were first at the feast, and were last in the fray.

They would turn in dismay, as red wolves turn at bay,

They leveled, they fired, they charged up the

road;

Cephas Willard fell dead; he was shot in the head As he knelt by Aunt Prudence's well-sweep to

load.

John Danforth was hit just in Lexington street, John Bridge, at that lane where you cross Beaver Falls;

And Winch and the Snows just above John Monroe's,

Swept away by one swoop of the big cannon balls.

I took Bridge on my knee, but he said: "Don't mind me,

Fill your horn from mine-let me lie where I be. Our fathers," says he, "that their sons might be free,

Left their king on his throne and came over the sea;

And that man is a knave or a fool who, to save
His life, for a minute would live like a slave."

Well! all would not do. There were men good as new,

From Rumford, from Sangus, from towns far away,

Who filled up quick and well for each soldier that fell,

And we drove them, and drove them, and drove them all day.

We knew, every one, it was war that begun
When that morning's marching was only half done.

In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night,

I crowded three buck-shot and one bullet down, 'T was my last charge of lead, and I aimed her and said:

"Good luck to you, lobsters, in old Boston town."

In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and Thoreau,

And Baker and Abram and I made a bed; We had mighty sore feet, and we'd nothing to eat, But we'd driven the Red Coats, and Amos, he said:

"It's the first time," says he, "that it's happened

to me

To march to the sea by this road where we've come;

But confound this whole day, but we'd all of us вау

We'd rather have spent it this way than to home."

The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun,
And night saw the wolf driven back to his den;
And never since then, in the memory of men,
Has the old Bay State seen such a hunting
again.
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.

BY-AND-BY.

UNDER the snow are the roses of June,
Cold in our bosoms the hopes of our youth;
Gone are the wild-birds that warbled in tune,
Mute are the lips that have pledged us their truth.
Wind of the winter night, lonely as I,
Wait we the dawn of the bright by-and-by.
Roses shall bloom again,

Sweet love will come again:

It will be summer time, by-and-by.
Patience and toil are the meed of to-day-
Toil without recompense, patience in vain;
Darkness and terrror lie thick on our way,

Our footsteps keep time with the angel of pain.
Wind of the winter night, far in the sky,
Watch for the day-star of dear by-and-by.
Parched lips shall quaff again,
Sad souls shall laugh again;
Earth will be happier, by-and-by.
Cruel and cold is the judgment of man,
Cruel as winter, and cold as the snow;
But by-and-by will the deed and the plan
Be judged by the motive that lieth below.
Wail of the winter wind, echo our cry,
Pray for the dawn of the sweet by-and-by,
When hope shall spring again;
When joy shall sing again;
Truth will be verified, by-and-by.
Weary and heartsick we totter along,

Feeble the back, though the burden is large;
Broken the purpose, and hushed is the song:

Why should we linger on life's little marge?
Wind of the winter night, hush! and reply:
Is there, oh! is there a glad by-and-by?
Will dark grow bright again,
Burdens grow light again,

And faith be justified, by-and-by?

Dreary and dark is the midnight of war,

Distant and dreamy the triumph of right;

Homes that are desolate, hearts that are sore,
Soon shall the morning star gladden our sight.
Wail of the winter wind, so like a sigh,
Herald the dawn of the blest by-and-by.
Freedom shall reign again,
Peace banish pain again;
Right will be glorified, by-and-by.

GIFTS.

LEWIS J. BATES.

A FLAWLESS pearl, snatched from an ocean cave
Remote from light or air,

And by the mad caress of stormy wave
Made but more pure and fair;