"This is a leaf, all withered and dry, That once was a canopy overhead; Does n't it almost make you cry

To look at the dear little empty bed?

"All the birdies have flown away;

But birds must fly or they would n't have wings;
And the mother knew they would go some day,
When she used to cuddle the downy things.

"Do you think she is lonesome? Why, there's a tear!
And here is another that makes two.
Why do you hug us, and look so queer?
If we were birdies we would n't leave you."

Deep in the mother's listening heart

Drops the prattle with sudden sting;

For lips may quiver, and tears may start,

But birds must fly or they would n't have wings.

-Emily Huntington Miller.

THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL

Have you not heard the poets tell

How came the dainty Babie Bell

Into this world of ours?

The gates of heaven were left ajar;

With folded hands and dreamy eyes,
Wandering out of Paradise,

She saw this planet, like a star,

Hung in the glistening depths of even,

Its bridges running to and fro,

O'er which the white-winged angels go,

Bearing the holy dead to heaven.

She touched a bridge of flowers,- those feet,

So light they did not bend the bells

Of the celestial asphodels!

They fell like dew upon the flowers,
Then all the air grew strangely sweet-

And thus came dainty Babie Bell
Into this world of ours.

She came and brought delicious May;
The swallows built beneath the eaves;
Like sunlight in and out the leaves,
The robins went the livelong day;
The lily swung its noiseless bell,

And o'er the porch the trembling vine
Seemed bursting with its veins of wine.
How sweetly, softly, twilight fell!
Oh, earth was full of singing-birds,
And opening spring-tide flowers,

When the dainty Babie Bell

Came to this world of ours!

O Babie, dainty Babie Bell,
How fair she grew from day to day!
What woman-nature filled her eyes,
What poetry within them lay!
Those deep and tender twilight eyes,
So full of meaning, pure and bright,
As if she yet stood in the light
Of those oped gates of Paradise.
And so we loved her more and more;
Ah, never in our hearts before
Was love so lovely born:

We felt we had a link between
This real world and that unseen

The land beyond the morn. And for the love of those dear eyes, For love of her whom God led forth (The mother's being ceased on earth When Babie came from Paradise),— For love of him who smote our lives, And woke the chords of joy and pain, We said, Dear Christ our hearts bent down,

-

Like violets after rain.

And now the orchards which were white
And red with blossoms when she came,

Were rich in autumn's mellow prime.
The clustered apples burnt like flame,
The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell,
The ivory chestnut burst its shell,

The grapes hung purpling in the grange;
And time wrought just as rich a change
In little Babie Bell.

Her lissome form more perfect grew,

And in her features we could trace,
In softened curves, her mother's face!
Her angel-nature ripened too.
We thought her lovely when she came,
But she was holy, saintly now:
Around her pale angelic brow
We saw a slender ring of flame.
God's hand had taken away the seal
That held the portals of her speech;
And oft she said a few strange words
Whose meaning lay beyond our reach.
She never was a child to us,
We never held her being's key,
We could not teach her holy things;
She was Christ's self in purity.

It came upon us by degrees:
We saw its shadow ere it fell,

The knowledge that our God had sent
His messenger for Babie Bell;

We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,
And all our hopes were changed to fears,
And all our thoughts ran into tears
Like sunshine into rain.

We cried aloud in our belief:

Oh, smite us gently, gently, God!
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,
And perfect grow through grief."
Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;
Her heart was folded deep in ours.

Our hearts are broken, Babie Bell!

At last he came, the messenger,
The messenger from unseen lands:
And what did dainty Babie Bell?
She only crossed her little hands,
She only looked more meek and fair!
We parted back her silken hair,
We wove the roses round her brow,-
White buds, the summer's drifted snow,-
Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers;
And then went dainty Babie Bell

Out of this world of ours!

-T. B. Aldrich.

EDWARD GRAY

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town Met me walking on yonder way; "And have you lost your heart?" she said; "And are you married yet, Edward Gray?"

"Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;

Filled I was with folly and spite,

When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

"Cruel, cruel the words I said!

Cruelly came they back to-day: 'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,

'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.'

"There I put my face in the grass Whispered, Listen to my despair: I repent me of all I did;

Speak a little, Ellen Adair!'

"Then I took a pencil and wrote
On the mossy stone, as I lay,
'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
And here the heart of Edward Gray!'

"Love may come, and love may go,
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree;
But I will love no more, no more,
Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

Bitterly wept I over the stone: Bitterly weeping, I turned away; There lies the body of Ellen Adair;

And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

-Lord Tennyson.

PICTURES OF MEMORY

Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory's wall,

Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all;
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mistletoe;
Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below;

Not for the milk-white lilies

That lean from the fragrant ledge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
for the vines on the upland,
Where the bright red berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale sweet cowslip,
It seemeth to me the best.