And I walked as if apart
From myself when I could stand,
And I pitied my own heart,

As if I held it in my hand
Somewhat coldly, with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a "Poor thing" negligence.

And I answered coldly too,

When you met me at the door;
And I only heard the dew

Dripping from me to the floor;
And the flowers I bade you see
Were too withered for the bee, -
As my life, henceforth, for me.

Do not weep so- -dear-heart-warm!
It was best as it befell!

If I say he did me harm,

Then I always was too grave,

Liked the saddest ballads sung, With that look, besides, we have In our faces who die young. I had died, dear, all the same, Life's long, joyous, jostling game Is too loud for my meek shame.

We are so unlike each other,

Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother, But for mutual tenderness. Thou art rose-lined from the cold, And meant, verily, to hold Life's pure pleasures manifold.

I am pale as crocus grows

Close beside a rose-tree's root! Whosoe'er would reach the rose, Treads the crocus underfoot;

Jesus, victim, comprehending
Love's divine self-abnegation,
Cleanse my love in its self-spending,
And absorb the poor libation!
Wind my thread of life up higher,
Up through angels' hands of fire!
I aspire while I expire !-

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

HOMESICK.

my

COME to me, 0 Mother! come to me,
Thine own son slowly dying far away!
Through the moist ways of the wide ocean, blown
By great invisible winds, come stately ships
To this calm bay for quiet anchorage;
They come, they rest awhile, they go away,
But, O my Mother, never comest thou!

As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies
Hum o'er him! Lo, a feather from the crow
Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes
See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm
Creeps from his festering corse! My God! my
God!

O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content.
If Thou have need of him he shall not stay.
But as one calleth to a servant, saying
"At such a time be with me," so, O Lord,
Call him to Thee! O, bid him not in haste
Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay aside
The soiled tools of labor. Let him wash

His hands of blood. Let him array himself
Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and fume
Of corporal travail! Lord, if he must die,
Let him die here. O, take him where Thou gavest !
And even as once I held him in my womb

-ah me!

That cold soft revelation pure as light,
And the pine-spire is mystically fringed,
Laced with incrusted silver. Here
The winter is decrepit, underborn,
A leper with no power but his disease.
Why am I from thee, Mother, far from thee?
Far from the frost enchantment, and the woods
Jewelled from bough to bough? O home, my

LORD, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, O Lord,
Do with him as Thou wilt; but O my God,
Let him come back to die! Let not the fowls
O' the air defile the body of my child,
My own fair child, that when he was a babe,
I lift up in my arms and gave to Thee!
Let not his garment, Lord, be vilely parted,
Nor the fine linen which these hands have spun
Fall to the stranger's lot! Shall the wild bird,
That would have pilfered of the ox, this year
Disdain the pens and stalls? Shall her blind

young,

That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold Whereof each thread is to this beating heart

So, O Lord, let me hold him in my grave
Till the time come, and Thou, who settest when
The hinds shall calve, ordain a better birth;
And as I looked and saw my son, and wept
For joy, I look again and see my son,
And weep again for joy of him and Thee!

THE FAREWELL

SIDNEY DOBELL.

OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

GONE, gone, sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air,
Gone, gone, - sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hill and waters,
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
sold and gone,

Gone, gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas!
Though ne'er that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare;
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

AE FOND KISS BEFORE WE PART.
AE fond kiss and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas! forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee;
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy
Naething could resist my Nancy :
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.

Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met - or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest !
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest !
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas! forever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee;
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

ROBERT BURNS.

O MY LUVE'S LIKE A RED, RED ROSE.

O MY Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie

That 's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I :

And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry :

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
ROBERT BURNS.

By day or night, in weal or woe,
That heart, no longer free,
Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent, ache for thee.

BYRON

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.. Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.*

MAID of Athens, ere we part,

Give, O give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,

Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.

By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each Ægean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.

By that lip I long to taste;

By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,

Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ,

Maid of Athens! I am gone.
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.

BYRON.

I dare not think upon thy vow,

And all it promised me, Mary.
No ford regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,
His foot like arrow free, Mary.

A time will come with feeling fraught!
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary.
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose,
To my young bride and me, Mary!

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

TO LUCASTA,

ON GOING TO THE WARS.

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flee.

True, a new mistresse now I chase, -
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you, too, should adore;

I could not love thee, deare, so much, Loved I not honor more.

RICHARD LOVELACE.