But this we know: Our loved and dead, if they | But he who loved her too well to dread He and she; still she did not move Ye cannot tell us, if ye would, the mystery of To any one passionate whisper of love. breath." And drew on her white feet her white silk shoesWhich were the whitest no eye could choose! And over her bosom they crossed her hands. And there was silence, and nothing there And they held their breath till they left the room, With a shudder, to glance at its stillness and gloom. Alas! who may tell? Some one or other, perhaps a fond mother, With the blue veil thrown 'round it, just as they May recognize these when her child's clothes she And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed. My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting, its roses, Its old agitations Of myrtles and roses : For now, while so quietly A holier odor About it, of pansies, A rosemary odor, Commingled with pansies, And so it lies happily, A dream of the truth And the beauty of Annie, Drowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie. A horse-shoe nailed, for luck, upon a mast; That mast, wave-bleached, upon the shore was cast! I saw, and thence no fetich I revered, But safe, through tempest, to my haven steered. II. The place with rose and myrtle was o'ergrown, Brave lines, long life, did my friend's hand display. EDITH M. THOMAS. If I should die to-night, My friends would call to mind, with loving thought And so I should be loved and mourned to-night. If I should die to-night, Even hearts estranged would turn once more to me The eyes that chill me with averted glance And soften, in the old familiar way; For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay? So I might rest, forgiven of all, to-night. Oh, friends, I pray to-night, Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow- My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn. BELLE E. SMITH. |