"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle, and song of birds, And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sister, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead,

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms;

"Free as when I rode that day

Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with a timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sat erect, with rigid elbows bedded thus in curv. ing palms;

There she sat on guard before us,
And in words precise, decorous,

And most calm, reviewed the weather, and recited several psalms.

How without abruptly ending
This my visit, and offending

Wealthy neighbors, was the problem which em. ployed my mental care;

When the butler, bowing lowly,
Uttered clearly, stiffly, slowly,

"Madam, please, the gardener wants you,"

Heaven, I thought, has heard my prayer.

"Pardon me!" she grandly uttered; Bowing low, I gladly muttered, 'Surely, madam!" and, relieved, I turned to scan the daughter's face:

Ha! what pent-up mirth outflashes From beneath those pencilled lashes! How the drill of Quaker custom yields to Nature's brilliant grace.

Brightly springs the prisoned fountain

From the side of Delphi's mountain When the stone that weighed upon its buoyant life is thrust aside;

So the long-enforced stagnation
Of the maiden's conversation

Now imparted five-fold brilliance to its evervarying tide.

Ar setting day and rising morn,

With soul that still shall love thee, I'll ask of Heaven thy afe return,

With all that can improve thee. I'll visit aft the birken bush,

Where first thou kindly told me Sweet tales of love, and hid thy blush, Whilst round thou didst infold me. To all our haunts I will repair,

By greenwood shaw or fountain; Or where the summer day I'd share

With thee upon yon mountain; There will I tell the trees and flowers,

From thoughts unfeigned and tender, By vows you're mine, by love is yours A heart which cannot wander.

ALLAN RAMSAY

LOVE.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope my joy! my Genevieve !
She loves me best whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story,
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

:

I told her how he pined and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace ;
And she forgave me that I gazed

Too fondly on her face.

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the dark some shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,