The changeful April sky of chance
And the strong tide of circumstance,
Give me, old granite gray,

Some of thy pensiveness serene,
Some of thy never-dying green,
Put in this scrip of mine,

That griefs may fall like snow-flakes light,

And deck me in a robe of white,
Ready to be an angel bright,
O sweetly mournful pine.

A little of thy merriment,
Of thy sparkling, light content,
Give me, my cheerful brook,
That I may still be full of glee
And gladsomeness, where'er I be,
Though fickle fate hath prisoned me
In some neglected nook.

Ye have been very kind and good
To me, since I've been in the wood;
Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart;
But good by, kind friends, every one,
I've far to go ere set of sun;

Of all good things I would have part,
The day was high ere I could start,
And so my journey's scarce begun.

Heaver help me! how could I forget
To beg of thee, dear violet !
Some of thy modesty,

That blossoms here as well, unseen,
As if before the world thou 'dst been,
O, give, to strengthen me.

MY LOVE.

I.

NOT as all other women are
Is she that to my soul is dear;
Her glorious fancies come from far,
Beneath the silver evening-star,
And yet her heart is ever near.

II.

Great feelings hath she of her own,
Which lesser souls may never know;
God giveth them to her alone,
And sweet they are as any tone
Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.

III.

Yet in herself she dwelleth not, Although no home were half so fair;

Look! look! that livid flash! And instantly follows the rattling thunder,

As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,

On the Earth, which crouches in silence under;

And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; For a breath's space I see the blue wood again,

And ere the next heart-beat, the windhurled pile,

That seemed but now a league aloof,

Gone, gone, so soon!

No more my half-crazed fancy there,

Can shape a giant in the air, No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form; The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.

LOVE.

roof;

Against the windows the storm comes
dashing,
Through tattered foliage the hail tears
crashing,

The blue lightning flashes,
The rapid hail clashes,
The white waves are tumbling,
And, in one baffled roar,
Like the toothless sea mumbling
A rock-bristled shore,
The thunder is rumbling
And crashing and crumbling,
Will silence return nevermore ?

Hush! Still as death,

The tempest holds his breath As from a sudden will;

The rain stops short, but from the

eaves

You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves,

All is so bodingly still;
Again, now, now, again
Plashes the rain in heavy gouts,

ware;

It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this workday world,

Baring its tender feet to every roughness, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty's law of plainness and content;

A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet

smile

Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home;

Which, when our autumn cometh, as it

must,

And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless,

Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth

In bleak November, and, with thankful heart,

Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit,

As full of sunshine to our aged eyes
As when it nursed the blossoms of our

spring.

Such is true Love, which steals into the

heart

With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark,

And hath its will through blissful gentleness,

Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night

Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults,

Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points,

But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness;

A love that shall be new and fresh each hour,

As is the golden mystery of sunset,
Or the sweet coming of the evening-star,
Alike, and yet most unlike, every day,
And seeming ever best and fairest now;
A love that doth not kneel for what it

seeks,

But faces Truth and Beauty as their peer,

Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts
By a clear sense of inward nobleness;
A love that in its object findeth not
All grace and beauty, and enough to sate
Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good
Found there, it sees but Heaven-granted
types

Of good and beauty in the soul of man, And traces, in the simplest heart that beats,

A family-likeness to its chosen one, That claims of it the rights of brotherhood.

For love is blind but with the fleshly

All thy smiles and all thy tears
In thy voice awaken,

And sweetness, wove of joy and woe,

From their teaching it hath taken : Feeling and music move together,

Like a swan and shadow ever
Floating on a sky-blue river
In a day of cloudless weather.

It hath caught a touch of sadness,
Yet it is not sad;

It hath tones of clearest gladness,
A dim, sweet twilight voice it is
Yet it is not glad ;
Where to-day's accustomed blue
over-grayed with memories,
With starry feelings quivered through.

Is