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TO A CARRIER PIGEON.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

123

To a Carrier Pigeon.

'OME hither, thou beautiful rover,

COM

Thou wanderer of earth and of air,
That bearest the sighs of the lover,
And bringest him news of his fair.
Bend hither thy light-waving pinion,

And show me the gloss of thy neck:
Come, perch on my hand, dearest minion,
And turn up thy bright eye, and peck.

Here is bread of the brightest and sweetest,
And here is a sip of red wine;

Though thy wing is the lightest and fleetest,
'Twill be fleeter when nerved by the vine.
I have written on rose-scented paper,

With thy wing-quill, a soft billet-doux; I have melted the wax in love's taper,'Tis the color of true heart's sky-blue.

I have fastened it under thy pinion,
With a blue ribbon round thy soft neck;
So go from me, beautiful minion,

While the pure ether shows not a speck.-
Like a cloud, in the dim distance fleeting,
Like an arrow, he hurries away;

And farther and farther retreating,
He is lost in the clear blue of day.

JAMES G. PERCIVAL

I

Love.-(Songs of Seven.)

LEANED out of window, I smelt the white clover, Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate; "Now if there be footsteps, he comes, my one loverHush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait

Till I listen and hear

If a step draweth near;
For my love, he is late!

"The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer,
A cluster of stars hangs like fruit on the tree:
The fall of the water comes sweeter, comes clearer;-
To what art thou listening, and what dost thou see?
Let the star-clusters glow,

Let the sweet waters flow,

And cross quickly to me.

"You night-moths that hover where honey brims over
From sycamore blossoms, or settle, or sleep;
You glow-worms shine out, and the pathway discover
To him that comes darkling along the rough steep.
Ah, my sailor, make haste,

For the time runs to waste,
And my love lieth deep-

"Too deep for swift telling; and yet, my one lover,
I've conned thee an answer, it waits thee to-night."
By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover,
And all the sweet speech I had fashioned, took flight.
But I'll love him more, more
Than e'er wife loved before,
Be the days dark or bright.

JEAN INGELOW.

THE FLOWER'S NAME.

125

The Flower's Name.

HERE's the garden she walked across,

Arm in my arm, such a short while since ;
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss

Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the leaves among.

Down this side of the gravel-walk

She went, while her robe's edge brushed the box: And here she paused in her gracious talk

To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. Roses, ranged in valiant row,

I will never think that she passed you by ! She loves you, noble roses, I know;

But yonder see, where the rock-plants lie !

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,

Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim;
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name.
What a name! Was it love or praise?
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name's sake.

Roses, if I live and do well,

I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell,

Fit you each with his Spanish phrase!
But do not detain me now; for she lingers
There, like sunshine over the ground,

And ever I see her soft white fingers
Searching after the bud she found.

Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not;
Stay as you are, and be loved forever!
Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow not,

Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never!
For while thus it pouts, her fingers wrestle,
Twinkling the audacious leaves between,
Till round they turn and down they nestle-
Is not the dear mark still to be seen?

Where I find her not, beauties vanish;
Whither I follow her, beauties flee;

Is there no method to tell her in Spanish

June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,

Measure my lady's lightest footfall;

Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces-
Roses, you are not so fair after all!

ROBERT BROWNING.

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Too Late I Stayed.

OO late I stayed-forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours;

How noiseless falls the foot of Time

That only treads on flowers!

And who with clear account remarks
The ebbings of his glass,

When all its sands are diamond sparks,
That dazzle as they pass?

Oh, who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds of Paradise have lent

Their plumage to his wings?

WILLIAM R. SPENCER.

ABSENCE.

As to the Distant Moon.

AS to the distant moon

The sea forever turns;

As to the polar star

The earth forever yearns:

So doth my constant heart

Beat oft for thine alone,

And o'er its far-off heaven of dreams

Thine image high enthrone.

But ah! the sea and moon,

The earth and star meet never;

And space as wide, and dark, and high

Divideth us forever!

127

ANNE C. LYNCH.

Absence.

WHAT shall I do with all the days and hours

WHAT

That must be counted ere I see thy face?

How shall I charm the interval that lowers

Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense-
Weary with longing? Shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
Cheat myself to forget the present day?

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin

Of casting from me God's great gift of time? Shall I, these mists of memory locked within, Leave and forget life's purposes sublime?

O, how, or by what means, may I contrive

To bring the hour that brings thee back more near? How may I teach my drooping hope to live

Until that blessed time, and thou art here?

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