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;
And the proud man sighed with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

"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.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls ;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge !

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall ;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: " 'It might have been!

Ah, well for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

QUAKERDOM.

THE FORMAL CALL.

THROUGH her forced, abnormal quiet

Flashed the soul of frolic riot,

When the noonday woods are ringing,

All the birds of summer singing,

Suddenly there falls a silence, and we know a

serpent nigh:

So upon the door a rattle

Stopped our animated tattle,

downcast eyes;

All in vain I tried each topic,

suit her eye.

CHARLES G. HALPINE

THE CHESS-BOARD. My little love, do you remember,

Ere we were grown so sadly wise, Those evenings in the bleak December, Curtained warm from the snowy weather, When you and I played chess together, Checkmated by each other's eyes?

Ah! still I see your soft white hand Hovering warm o'er Queen and Knight;

Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand; The double Castles guard the wings; The Bishop, bent on distant things, Moves, sidling, through the fight.

Our fingers touch; our glances meet, And falter; falls your golden hair

Against my cheek; your bosom sweet Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen Rides slow, her soldiery all between, And checks me unaware.

Ah me the little battle 's done : Disperst is all its chivalry. Full many a move since then have we Mid life's perplexing checkers made, And many a game with fortune played; What is it we have won ? This, this at least, - if this alone :