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RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH.

THERE are gains for all our losses,

There are balms for all our pain: But when youth, the dream, departs, It takes something from our hearts, And it never comes again.

We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain:
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth, and in the air,
But it never comes again.

AN OLD SONG REVErsed.

"THERE are gains for all our losses." So I said when I was young.

If I sang that song again,
'Twould not be with that refrain,

Which but suits an idle tongue.

Youth has gone, and hope gone with it,

Gone the strong desire for fame. Laurels are not for the old. Take them, lads. Give Senex gold. What's an everlasting name?

When my life was in its summer

One fair woman liked my looks: Now that Time has driven his plough In deep furrows on my brow,

I'm no more in her good books.

"There are gains for all our losses?" Grave beside the wintry sea, Where my child is, and my heart, For they would not live apart,

What has been your gain to me?

No, the words I sang were idle,
And will ever so remain:
Death, and age, and vanished youth,
All declare this bitter truth,

"There's a loss for every gain!"

AT LAST.

WHEN first the bride and bridegroom wed,

They love their single selves the best;

A sword is in the marriage-bed.

Their separate slumbers are not
rest;

They quarrel, and make up again,
They give and suffer worlds of pain.
Both right and wrong,
They struggle long,
[old,
Till some good day, when they are
Some dark day, when the bells are

tolled,

Death having taken their best of life, They lose themselves, and find each

other; [wife, They know that they are husband, For, weeping, they are father, mother!

THE TWo brideS.

I SAW two maids at the kirk, And both were fair and sweet: One in her wedding-robe,

And one in her winding-sheet. The choristers sang the hymn, The sacred rites were read, And one for life to life,

And one to death was wed.

They were borne to their bridal-beds, In loveliness and bloom;

One in a merry castle,

And one in a solemn tomb.

One on the morrow woke

In a world of sin and pain; But the other was happier far, And never awoke again.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

THIS man whose homely face you

look upon, Was one of nature's masterful, great

men;

Born with strong arms, that unfought battles won;

Direct of speech, and cunning with the pen.

Chosen for large designs, he had the

art

Of winning with his humor, and he

went

Straight to his mark, which was the human heart;

Wise, too, for what he could not break he bent.

Upon his back a more than Atlasload,

The burden of the Commonwealth, was laid;

He stooped, and rose up to it, though the road

Shot suddenly downwards, not a
whit dismayed.

Hold, warriors, councillors, kings!
All now give place

To this dear benefactor of the
race.

HOW ARE SONGS BEGOT AND BRED.

How are songs begot and bred?
How do golden measures flow?
From the heart, or from the head,
Happy poet, let me know.

Tell me first how folded flowers
Bud and bloom in vernal bowers;

And the blasted limb of the churchyard yew,

It shakes like a ghostly hand.

The dead are engulfed beneath it,
Sunk in the grassy waves:
But we have more dead in our hearts
to-day

Than earth in all her graves!

SONGS UNSUNG.

LET no poet, great or small,
Say that he will sing a song;
For song cometh, if at all,

Not because we woo it long,
But because it suits its will,
Tired at last of being still.

Every song that has been sung

Was before it took a voice,
Waiting since the world was young

For the poet of its choice.
Oh, if any waiting be,

May they come to-day to me!

I am ready to repeat

Whatsoever they impart;
Sorrows sent by them are sweet,

They know how to heal the heart:
Ay, and in the lightest strain
|Something serious doth remain.

What are my white hairs, forsooth,
And the wrinkles on my brow?

How the south wind shapes its tune, I have still the soul of youth,

The harper, he, of June.

None may answer, none may know,
Winds and flowers come and go,
And the selfsame canons bind
Nature and the poet's mind.

RATTLE THE WINDOW.

RATTLE the window, winds,
Rain, drip on the panes;
There are tears and sighs in our
hearts and eyes,
And a weary weight on our brains.

The gray sea heaves and heaves,
On the dreary flats of sand;

Try me, merry Muses, now.

I can still with numbers fleet
Fill the world with dancing feet.

No, I am no longer young,

Old am I this many a year;
But my songs will yet be sung,
Though I shall not live to hear.
O my son that is to be,

Sing my songs, and think of me!

WHEN THE DRUM OF SICKNESS
BEATS.

WHEN the drum of sickness beats
The change o' the watch, and we
are old.

Farewell, youth, and all its sweets,
Fires gone out that leave us cold!

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WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.

THE VIOLET.

The young moon's silver arc, her perfect circle tells,

O FAINT, delicious, spring-time vio- The limitless, within Art's bounded

let,

Thine odor, like a key,

outline dwells.

Turns noiselessly in memory's wards Of every noble work, the silent part

to let

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is best;

Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.

Each act contains the life, each work of art, the world,

And all the planet-laws are in each dewdrop pearled.

WETMORE COTTAGE, NAHANT.

THE hours on the old piazza

That overhangs the sea,

With a tender and pensive music
At times steal over me;

A spring goes singing through its And again, o'er the balcony lean

reedy grass;

The lark sings o'er my head,

ing,

We list to the surf on the beach,

Drowned in the sky.-Oh, pass, ye That fills with its solemn warning

visions, pass!

I would that I were dead!

The intervals of speech.

Why hast thou opened that forbidden We three sit at night in the moon

door

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light,

As we sat in the summer gone,
And we talk of art and nature

And sing as we sit alone;
We sing the old songs of Sorrento,

Where oranges hang o'er the sea, And our hearts are tender with dreaming

Of days that no more shall be.

How gaily the hours went with us
In those old days that are gone!
Ah! would we were all together.
Where now I am standing alone.
Could life be again so perfect?

Ah, never! these years so drain The heart of its freshness of feeling,

But I long, though the longing be vain.

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