Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 130.djvu/522

A SUMMER'S GHOST.

In that old summer can you still recall
The pomp with which the strong sun rose and set,
How bright the moon- shone on the shining fields,
What wild, sweet blossoms with the dew were wet?

Can you still hear the merry robins sing,
And see the brave red lilies gleam and glow,
The waiting wealth of bloom, the reckless bees,
That woo their wild-flower loves, and sting, and go?

Canst hear the waves that round the happy shore
Broke in soft joy, and told delusive tales —
We go, but we return; love comes and goes;
And eyes that watch see homeward-faring sails.
"'Twas thus in other seasons?" Ah, may be!
But I forgot them, and remembered this —
A brief, warm season, and a fond, brief love,
And cold, white winter after bloom and bliss.

Victoria Magazine.

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A WATER-LILY AT EVENING.

Sleep, lily on the lake,
Without one troubled dream
Thy hushed repose to break,
Until the morning beam
Shall open thy glad heart again;
To live its life apart from pain.

So still is thy repose,
So pure thy petals seem,
As heaven would here disclose
Its peace, and we might deem
A soul in each white lily lay,
Passionless, from the lands of day.

Yet but a flower thou art,
For angel ne'er or saint,
Though kept on earth apart
From every earthly taint,
A life so passionless could know,
Amid a world of human woe.

F. W. B.

Spectator.

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THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

She lifts to-day her fairy bells
For balmy winds to sway,
And round her cells the brown bee tells
The music of the May.
She treasures in her snowy cup
The sunbeam's golden light,
And brims the dainty chalice up
With starry pearls of night.
She calls my heart as in a trance
To years long passed away;
I feel once more the gentle glance
That lit my life's young day.
O blooms so sweet, the blooms she wore —
And she as fair as they! —
Your spell can give my heart no more
The lily of its May!

Hattie A. Feuling.

N. Y. Evening Post.

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MY TREASURES.

I count my treasures o'er and o'er
Gifts of the past, a golden store,
And time can give me nothing more.

The little ring she used to wear,
A shadow picture, sweet and fair,
Dead violets, and a tress of hair.

Frail keys, that ope to bygone time,
I wander on and reach a clime
Where bells of morning ever chime.

There all my fair possessions lie,
My castles that no wealth can buy
Their golden summits in the sky.

O youth, to feel death's breath of frost!
O little hands too early crossed!
Nor love nor faith can count you lost.

H. A. Feuling.

Good Samaritan.

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TO KATE.

Why does this feeling of unrest
Deep rooted live within my breast?
I have no reason to complain
Of fickle fortune, and no stain
Or memory of evil haunts me.
What have I sown that I should reap
The whirlwind, — that I cannot — sleep
Or waking — ever be at ease?
I look among my treasures rare,
My treasures rich beyond compare,
I search them idly through and through,
And 'though I have but few, but few,
The one of all to me most dear,
Alas! I do not find it here.

You ask what jewel have I lost,
Of such immensity and cost,
And who the culprit bold can be
Who stole my peace of mind from me.
A woman is the criminal.
She has such eyes of heav'nly blue,
That speak of heart and soul so true,
I fear I cannot prove her guilt;
For judge and jury will refuse
To hear the pleading of my muse,
To listen to a charge of theft
From one of reason almost 'reft, —
They'll not believe the story, mine,
'Gainst honest face and eyes as thine.

T.

Transcript.