ΤΙ

HOSE we love truly never die,

Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,

A ring and flowers, types of life and death,

Are laid upon their graves.

For death the pure life saves,

And life all pure is love; and love can reach
From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach
Than those by mortals read.

Well blest is he who has a dear one dead:
A friend he has whose face will never change-
A dear communion that will not grow strange;
The anchor of a love is death.

The blessed sweetness of a loving breath Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary years. For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears, She's thine unto the end.

Thank God for one dead friend,

With face still radiant with the light of truth,
Whose love comes laden with the scent of youth,
Through twenty years of death.

MY NATIVE LAND.

IT chanced to me upon a time to sail

Across the Southern Ocean to and fro; And, landing at fair isles, by stream and vale Of sensuous blessing did we ofttimes go.

And months of dreamy joys, like joys in sleep,
Or like a clear, calm stream o'er mossy stone,
Unnoted passed our hearts with voiceless sweep,
And left us yearning still for lands unknown.

And when we found one,-for 'tis soon to find
In thousand-isled Cathay another isle,—
For one short noon its treasures filled the mind,
And then again we yearned, and ceased to smile.
And so it was, from isle to isle we passed,

Like wanton bees or boys on flowers or lips;
And when that all was tasted, then at last
We thirsted still for draughts instead of sips.

I learned from this there is no Southern land

Can fill with love the hearts of Northern men. Sick minds need change; but, when in health they stand 'Neath foreign skies, their love flies home again. And thus with me it was: the yearning turned

From laden airs of cinnamon away,

And stretched far westward, while the full heart burned With love for Ireland, looking on Cathay!

My first dear love, all dearer for thy grief!
My land, that has no peer in all the sea
For verdure, vale, or river, flower or leaf,-
If first to no man else, thou'rt first to me.
New loves may come with duties, but the first

Is deepest yet,-the mother's breath and smiles:
Like that kind face and breast where I was nursed
Is my poor land, the Niobe of isles.

Ν

IN the Spring we see:

A YEAR.

Then the buds are dear to us-immature bosoms like lilies swell.

In the Summer we live :

When bright eyes are near to us, oh, the sweet stories the false lips tell!

In the Autumn we love :

When the honey is dripping, deep eyes moisten and soft breasts heave;

In the Winter we think :

With the sands fast slipping, we smile and sigh for the days we leave.

THE FAME OF THE CITY.

GREAT rich city of power and pride,

With streets full of traders, and ships on the tide; With rich men and workmen and judges and preachers, The shops full of skill and the schools full of teachers.

The people were proud of their opulent town:
The rich men spent millions to bring it renown;
The strong men built and the tradesmen planned;
The shipmen sailed to every land;

The lawyers argued, the schoolmen taught,
And a poor shy Poet his verses brought,
And cast them into the splendid store.

The tradesmen stared at his useless craft;

The rich men sneered and the strong men laughed;

The preachers said it was worthless quite ;

The schoolmen claimed it was theirs to write;

But the songs were spared, though they added naught
To the profit and praise the people sought,
That was wafted at last from distant climes ;
And the townsmen said: "To remotest times
We shall send our name and our greatness down!"

The boast came true; but the famous town

Had a lesson to learn when all was told :

The nations that honored cared naught for its gold,
Its skill they exceeded an hundred-fold;

It had only been one of a thousand more,

Had the songs of the Poet been lost to its store.

Then the rich men and tradesmen and schoolmen said
They had never derided, but praised instead ;
And they boast of the Poet their town has bred.

JOYS

YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW.

YS have three stages, Hoping, Having, and Had: The hands of Hope are empty, and the heart of Having is sad;

For the joy we take, in the taking dies; and the joy we Had is its ghost.

Now, which is the better-the joy unknown or the joy we have clasped and lost?

IN BOHEMIA.

D rather live in Bohemia than in any other land;
For only there are the values true,

And the laurels gathered in all men's view.
The prizes of traffic and state are won

By shrewdness or force or by deeds undone;
But fame is sweeter without the feud,
And the wise of Bohemia are never shrewd.
Here, pilgrims stream with a faith sublime
From every class and clime and time,
Aspiring only to be enrolled

With the names that are writ in the book of gold;
And each one bears in mind or hand

A palm of the dear Bohemian land.

The scholar first, with his book—a youth
Aflame with the glory of harvested truth;
A girl with a picture, a man with a play,
A boy with a wolf he has modeled in clay;
A smith with a marvelous hilt and sword,
A player, a king, a plowman, a lord—
And the player is king when the door is past.
The plowman is crowned, and the lord is last!

I'd rather fail in Bohemia than win in another land;

There are no titles inherited there,

No hoard or hope for the brainless heir;

No gilded dullard native born

To stare at his fellow with leaden scorn:

Bohemia has none but adopted sons;

Its limits, where Fancy's bright stream runs ;

Its honors, not garnered for thrift or trade,

But for beauty and truth men's souls have made.

To the empty heart in a jeweled breast

There is value, maybe, in a purchased crest;
But the thirsty of soul soon learn to know

The moistureless froth of the social show;