Built up its idle door, UNDER THE VIOLETS. HER hands are cold; her face is white; But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; A slender cross of wood alone Shall say, that here a maiden lies And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall wheel their circling shadows round To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, And, ripening in the autumn sun, Stretched in his last-found home, and For her the morning choir shall sing knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Its matins from the branches high, When, turning round their dial-track, At last the rootlets of the trees Build thee more stately mansions, O my And bear the buried dust they seize soul, As the swift seasons roll! In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise! If any, born of kindlier blood, That tried to blossom in the snow, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. [U. S. A.] THE HERITAGE. THE rich man's son inherits lands, And tender flesh that fears the cold, The rich man's son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man's son inherits wants, His stomach craves for dainty fare; With sated heart, he hears the pants Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, And wearies in his easy chair; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man's son inherit? Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; King of two hands, he does his part What doth the poor man's son inherit? What doth the poor man's son inherit? JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to | In doubt, But when it does git stirred, there's no gin-out! Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, Ef all on 'em don't head against the wind. So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, Softer 'n a baby's be a' three days old: Thet 's robin-red breast's almanick; he knows Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom 225 ellum shrouds the flashin' hang-bird clings, An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings; All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try With pins-they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby! But I don't love your cat'logue style, — Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo; Nuff sed, June 's bridesman, poet of the year, Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. THE COURTIN'. GOD makes sech nights, all white an' still Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown An' peeked in thru the winder, 'Ith no one nigh to hender. A fireplace filled the room's one side There warnt no stoves (tell comfort died) The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out Towards the pootiest, bless her, Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez the apples she was peelin'. "T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look On sech a blessed cretur, A dogrose blushin' to a brook He was six foot o' man, A 1, Clean grit an' human natur'; None could n't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells All is, he could n't love 'em. But long o' her his veins 'ould run She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, To say why gals act so or so, Or don't, 'ould be presumin'; He stood a spell on one foot fust, Says he, "I'd better call agin"; Says she, "Think likely, Mister"; Thet last word pricked him like a pin, An'. . . . Wal, he up an' kist her. When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, Huldy sot pale ez ashes, All kin' o' smily roun' the lips An' teary roun' the lashes. For she was jes' the quiet kind The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued AMBROSE. NEVER, surely, was holier man He sought to know 'twixt right and wrong, Much wrestling with the blessed Word To make it yield the sense of the Lord, That he might build a storm-proof creed To fold the flock in at their need. At last he builded a perfect faith, Fenced round about with The Lord thus saith; "To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es To himself he fitted the doorway's size, Agin to-morrer's i'nin'.' Meted the light to the need of his eyes, |