All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet;

All day long that free flag tossed
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And, through the hill-gaps, sunset light

A wish that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.

The judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees to greet the maid;
And asked a draught from the spring
that flowed

night.

The judge looked back as he climbed the hill,

He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,

He watched a picture come and go: And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise. Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,

He longed for the wayside well instead,

"A form more fair, a face more

sweet,

Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

66

rooms,

To dream of meadows and clover

blooms.

ful air

And she heard the little spring-brook fall

Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein,

noon, When he hummed in court an old

She felt his pleased eyes read her

face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned,

again,

Saying only," It might have been."

Alas, for maiden, alas, for judge, For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both, and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies

Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!

[From The Tent on the Beach. -The Grave by the Lake.]

UNIVERSAL SALVATION.

O THE generations old

Over whom no church-bells tolled,
Christless, lifting up blind eyes
To the silence of the skies!
For the innumerable dead
Is my soul disquieted,

Hearest thou, O of little faith.
What to thee the mountain saith,
What is whispered by the trees?-
"Cast on God thy care for these;
Trust him, if thy sight be dim;
Doubt for them is doubt of Him.

"Blind must be their close-shut eyes
Where like night the sunshine lies,
Fiery-linked the self-forged chain
Binding ever sin to pain,
Strong their prison-house of will,
But without He waiteth still.

Not with hatred's undertow Doth the Love Eternal ilow; Every chain that spirits wear Crumbles in the breath of prayer; And the penitent's desire Opens every gate of fire.

"Still Thy love, O Christ arisen,
Yearns to reach these souls in prison!
Through all depths of sin and loss
Drops the plunimet of Thy cross!
Never yet abyss was found
Deeper than that cross could sound!"

[From The Tent on the Beach. Abrahan Davenport.j

NATURE'S REVERENCE. THE harp at Nature's advent, strung Has never ceased to play:

The song the stars of morning sung Has never died away.

And prayer is made, and praise is given,

Ly all things near and far:
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.

Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea!

They pour their glittering treasures forth,

Their gifts of pearl they bring, And all the listening hills of earth Take up the song they sing.

The green earth sends her incense

With drooping head and branches crossed

The twilight forest grieves, Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost From all its sunlit leaves.

The blue sky is the temple's arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.

So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.

THE PRESSED GENTIAN.

THE time of gifts has come again, And, on my northern window-pane, Outlined against the day's brief light, A Christmas token hangs in sight. The wayside travellers, as they pass, Mark the gray disk of clouded glass; And the dull blankness seems, perchance,

Folly to their wise ignorance.

They cannot from their outlook see
The perfect grace it hath for me;
For there the flower, whose fringes
through

The frosty breath of autumn blew,
Turns from without its face of bloom
To the warm tropic of my room,
As fair as when beside its brook
The hue of bending skies it took.

So, from the trodden ways of earth, Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth,

And offer to the careless glance
The clouding gray of circumstance.
They blossom best where hearth-fires
burn,

To loving eyes alone they turn
The flowers of inward grace, that
hide

Their beauty from the world outside.

But deeper meanings come to me, My half-immortal flower, from thee!

Man judges from a partial view, None ever yet his brother knew; The Eternal Eye that sees the whole May better read the darkened soul, And find, to outward sense denied, The flower upon its inmost side!

MY PLAYMATE.

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low:
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear:
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flow

ers,

My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring,

The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine;
What more could ask the bashful
boy

Who fed her father's kine ?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May

morns,

But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown,
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

And borne upon the necks of men
I saw,

Like some great god, the Holy Lord of Rome.

Priest-like, he wore a robe more

white than foam, And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,

Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:

In splendor and in light the Pope passed hoire.

My heart stole back across wide wastes of years

To One who wandered by a lonely sea.

And sought in vain for any place of rest:

"Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,

I, only I, must war der wearily, And bruise my et, and drink wine salt with ears."

MADONNAΑ ΜΙΑ.

A LILY-GIRL, not made for this world's pain,

With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,

And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears

Like bluest water seen through mists of rain: