Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/712

INDIVISIBLE.

A moment face to face they stood,
While soul met soul in honest eyes
That trembling glowed through unshed tears,
Born of a love that never dies.

They met to speak the saddest word
That e'er on human lips can dwell:
But, O, the mockery to dream
That such as these could take farewell!

For as two roseate clouds unite,
In wake of the departed sun,
Their kindred essence pure and sweet,
These twain had softly merged in one.

They might be severed pole from pole,
Might live through all the years apart;
What mattered time and space to them
Whose home was in each other's heart?

He craved a tress of that fine gold
Whose wavy wreaths her forehead graced;
Bending to grant the boon, he clasped
A zone of pearl about her waist.

A moment more, and he was gone
From sight, nought else. High heart and mind,
Stronghold of tenderness and truth,
Defied the hour, and stayed behind!

The seasons rolled, and ne'er again
Thus face to face 'twas theirs to stand;
Yet heart to heart they walked the world
On to the goal, the silent land.

O gift of gifts! a noble soul
That wraps our own in full embrace,
Till all mean things in love's great sea
Are lost, and self hath no more place.

Good Words. Jane C. Simpson.

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"LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD."

'Tis gone, with its joys and sorrows;
Its sunshine and storms of rain:
Look not away in the distance,
On relics of grief and pain;
Look up, dear friends, instead:
Let the dead year bury its dead!

What if our pride have suffered?
What if the hour of need
Have shown that the friend we trusted
Was worse than a broken reed?
Look up, though our hearts have bled:
Let the dead year bury its dead.

Let us count the abundant mercies
Our one great Friend has sent;
The days of our light and darkness —
All gifts of one sweet intent.
No matter the tears we shed:
Let the dead year bury its dead.

Ah, youth has been taught stern lessons,
And we of maturer years
Have learned a yet keener knowledge
Of life's vain hopes and fears.
How surely God's hand hath led!
Let the dead year bury its dead.

And the new-born year shall find us
Courageous, alert and strong;
Girt up for the strife before us,
Though sharp the trial and long.
On, on, with a firmer tread,
While the dead year buries its dead.

Month.

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IN A CHILD'S ALBUM.

Some day, my child, in poet's tenderest strain,
You may perchance be heard divinely singing;
The attar of an ecstasy or pain,
In passioned sweetness flinging;
Some day.

Some day, it may be, hot wild tears will flow
And show how tempests tear the rose to blowing;
And what you sighed in radiant spring to know,
Will pierce your heart with knowing;
Some day.

Some day, oh, child! as one who fain would rest,
You may await death's peaceful tide inflowing,
And float, with heavenly lilies on your breast,
To heavenly lilies growing.
Some day.

Transcript. Mrs. L. C. Whiton.

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AT THE PLAY.

Dora seated at the play
Weeps to see the hero perish, —
Hero of a Dresden day,
Fit for china nymphs to cherish;
O that Dora's heart would be
Half so soft and warm for me!

When the flaring lights are out
His heroic deeds are over,
Gone his splendid strut and shout,
Gone his raptures of a lover,
While my humdrum heart you'd find
True, though out of sight and mind.

Athenæum. Edmund W. Gosse.