The snow was crisp beneath our feet, The moon was full, the fields were gleaming; By hood and tippet shelter'd sweet, Her face with youth and health was beaming. The little hand outside her muff, O sculptor! if you could but mould it !— So lightly touch'd my jacket-cuff, To keep it warm I had to hold it. To have her with me there alone, 'Twas love and fear and triumph blended. At last we reach'd the foot-worn stone Where that delicious journey ended. The old folks, too, were almost home: Yet on the doorstep still we linger'd. She shook her ringlets from her hood, And with a "Thank you, Ned!" dissembled, But yet I knew she understood With what a daring wish I trembled. A cloud pass'd kindly overhead, The moon was slyly peeping through it, Yet hid its face, as if it said, 66 Come, now or never! do it! do it!" My lips till then had only known The kiss of mother and of sister, Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still, To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill, HELEN FISKE JACKSON.* Born at Amherst, Mass: 1833-5. CORONATION. Ar the king's gate the subtle noon Through the king's gate, unquestion'd then, The king sate bow'd beneath his crown, "Poor man! what wouldst thou have of me?" The beggar turn'd, and, pitying, Replied, like one in a dream- "Of thee 66 Nothing: I want the king!' Uprose the king, and from his head Shook off the crown, and threw it by : "O man! thou must have known "-he said"A greater king than I!" Through all the gates, unquestion'd then, 66 The beggar laugh'd. Free winds in haste *See Note 25. At the king's gate the crafty noon The guards wak'd, one by one. "Ho here! ho there! Has no man seen On the king's gate the moss grew gray; SPINNING. LIKE a blind spinner in the sun, I know that all the threads will run I know each day will bring its task, I do not know the use or name I only know that some one came, My hand the thread, and said—" Since you "Are blind, but one thing you can do." Sometimes the threads so rough and fast I know wild storms are sweeping past, Shall fall; but dare not try to find I know not why, but I am sure In some great fabric to endure, My threads will have: so from the first, I think perhaps this trust has From one short word sprung Said over me when I was young,— It, knowing not that God's name sign'd But whether this be seal or sign, It matters not: the bond divine I know He sat me here, and still But listen, listen, day by day, To hear their tread Who bear the finish'd web away, And cut the thread, And bring God's message in the sun— "Thou poor blind spinner! work is done!" TRYST. SOMEWHERE thou awaitest, The golden bowls are broken, Have bloom'd-that I am thine. Others who would fly thee Who hate thee and deny thee, How shall I intreat thee O lover! whose lips chilling GEORGE ARNOLD. Born at New York 1834-died 1865. THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE. "Twas a jolly old pedagogue, long ago, The living should live, though the dead be dead,"— He taught his scholars the rule of three, And the wants of the littlest child he knew: |