Till her outstretched hands smiled also,

And I almost seemed to see

The very heart of her mother

Sending sun through her veins to me !

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away;
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari
But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage-door,
My little bird used her wings.

But they left instead a changeling,

A little angel child,

That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled :
When I wake in the morning, I see it
Where she always used to lie,

And I feel as weak as a violet
Alone 'neath the awful sky.

As weak, yet as trustful also ;
For the whole year long I see

All the wonders of faithful Nature

Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
Rain falls, suns rise and set,

Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
A poor little violet.

This child is not mine as the first was,

I cannot sing it to rest,

I cannot lift it up fatherly
And bliss it upon my breast;
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she 's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.

THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS.

HERE came a youth upon the earth,

Some thousand years ago,

Whose slender hands were nothing

worth,

Whether to plough, or reap, or sow.

Upon an empty tortoise-shell

He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men's bosoms swell Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.

Then King Admetus, one who had
Pure taste by right divine,
Decreed his singing not too bad

To hear between the cups of wine :

And so, well pleased with being soothed

Into a sweet half-sleep,

Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.

His words were simple words enough,
And yet he used them so,

That what in other mouths was rough
In his seemed musical and low.

Men called him but a shiftless youth,
In whom no good they saw;

And yet, unwittingly, in truth,

They made his careless words their law.

They knew not how he learned at all,
For idly, hour by hour,

He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,
Or mused upon a common flower.

It seemed the loveliness of things

Did teach him all their use,

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a healing power profuse.

Men granted that his speech was wise,
But, when a glance they caught

Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,

They laughed, and called him good-for

naught.

Yet after he was dead and gone,

And e'en his memory dim,

Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,

More full of love, because of him.

And day by day more holy grew
Each spot where he had trod,

Till after-poets only knew

Their first-born brother as a god,

AMBROSE.

EVER, surely, was holier man
Than Ambrose, since the world be-

gan;

With diet spare and raiment thin

He shielded himself from the father of sin; With bed of iron and scourgings oft,

His heart to God's hand as wax made soft.

Through earnest prayer and watchings long
He sought to know 'tween right and wrong,
Much wrestling with the blessed Word
To make it yield the sense of the Lord,
That he might build a storm-proof creed
To fold the flock in at their need.

At last he builded a perfect faith,

Fenced round about with The Lord thus saith;
To himself he fitted the doorway's size,
Meted the light to the need of his eyes,
And knew, by a sure and inward sign,
That the work of his fingers was divine.