Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, ·
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

THE COURTIN'.

FROM THE "BIGLOW PAPERS," SECOND SERIES.

God makes sech nights, all white an' still

Fur 'z you can look or listen,

Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in—

There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,

An' leetle flames danced all about

The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbly crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',

An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A 1,

Clean grit an' human natur'; None couldn't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He 'd sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spellsAll is, he couldn't love 'em.

But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v’ice hed such a swing

Ez hisn in the choir;

My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair

O' blue eyes sot upon it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he 'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,-

All ways to once her feelin's flew,
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk

Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, Parin' away like murder.

"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"

"

Wal... . no.... I come dasignin'"

"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."

To say why gals act so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be presumin';
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust

He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.

Says he, "I'd better call agin";
Says she, "Think likely, Mister";
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An'.... Wal, he up an' kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,

All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.

For she was jes' the quiet kind

Whose naturs never vary,

Like streams that keep a summer mind Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued

Too tight for all expressin',

Tell mother see how metters stood,

An' gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,

And all I know is they was cried

In meetin' come nex' Sunday.

AUX ITALIENS.

At Paris it was, at the Opera there ;

And she look'd like a queen in a book that night,

With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair,
And the brooch on her breast, so bright.

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,

The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore: And Mario can soothe with a tenor note The souls in Purgatory.

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow:

And who was not thrill'd in the strangest way,

As we heard him sing, while the gas burn'd low,

The Emperor there, in his box of state,

Look'd grave, as if he had just then seen

The red flag wave from the city-gate,

Where his eagles in bronze had been.