tease my pain,

Do draw it o'er again and o'er again. They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:

Always the same, the same.

Nature hath no surprise, No ambuscade of beauty, 'gainst mine eyes

From brake, or lurking dell, or deep defile;

No humors, frolic forms,- this mile, that mile;

No rich reserves

or happy-valley

hopes Beyond the bends of roads, the distant slopes.

Her fancy fails, her wild is all run

tame:

Ever the same, the same. Oh! might I through these tears But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,

Where white the quartz, and pink the pebbles shine,

The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadine

Swings o'er the slope; the oak's farfalling shade

Darkens the dog-wood in the bottom glade,

nook Bright leaps a living brook!

BETRAYAL.

THE sun has kissed the violet sea,

O Sea! wouldst thou not better be

And turned the violet to a rose.

Mere violet still? Who knows?
who knows?

Well hides the violet in the wood:
The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood,
And winter's ill is violet's good;
But the bold glory of the rose,
It quickly comes and quickly goes;
Red petals whirling in white snows,
Ah me!

The sun has burnt the rose-red sea:
The rose is turned to ashes gray.
O Sea! O Sea! mightst thou but be
The violet thou hast been to-day!
The sun is brave, the sun is bright,
The sun is lord of love and light;
But after him it cometh night.
O anguish of the lonesome dark!
Once a girl's body, stiff and stark,
Was laid in a tomb without a mark.
Ah me!

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

POOR lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window, binding shoes, Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting, stitching, in a mournful

muse.

Bright-eyed beauty once was she, When the bloom was on the tree: Spring and winter,

Fair young Hannah,

shoes.

Hale and clever,

For a willing heart and hand he sues. May-day skies are all aglow,

And the waves are laughing so!

Twenty seasons,Never one has brought her any news. Still her dim eyes silently

Chase the white sails o'er the sea: Hopeless, faithful,

sight, In the chosen footprint, at any hap.

In the comfort of home who is glad

der than she ?

Yet, stirred by no murmur of "might have been,"

Her heart as a carolling bird soars free,

With the song of each nest she has glanced within.

Having the whole, she covets no part:

Hers is the bliss of all blessèd things.

The tears that unto her eyelids start,

Are those which a generous pity brings;

Or the sympathy of heroic faith

With a holy purpose, achieved or lost.

To stifle the truth is to stop her breath,

For she rates a lie at its deadly cost.

Her friends are good women and faithful men,

Who seek for the true, and uphold the right;

And who shall proclaim her the weaker, when

Her very presence puts sin to flight?

And dreads she never the coming years ?"

Gossip, what are the years to

her?

She reads the hereafter by the here: A beautiful Now, and a better To Be:

In life is all sweetness, in death no fear,

You waste your pity on such as she.

HAND IN HAND WITH ANGELS.

HAND in hand with angels,

Through the world we go; Brighter eyes are on us

Than we blind ones know; Tenderer voices cheer us

Than we deaf will own;
Never, walking heavenward,
Can we walk alone.

Hand in hand with angels,
In the busy street,
By the winter hearth-fires,-
Everywhere, we meet,
Though unfledged and songless,
Birds of Paradise;
Heaven looks at us daily
Out of human eyes.

Hand in hand with angels;
Oft in menial guise;
By the same strait pathway
Prince and beggar rise.
If we drop the fingers,
Toil-imbrowned and worn,
Then one link with heaven
From our life is torn.

Hand in hand with angels:
Some are fallen,-alas!
Soiled wings trail pollution
Over all they pass.
Lift them into sunshine!

Bid them seek the sky! Weaker is your soaring, When they cease to fly.

Hand in hand with angels;
Some are out of sight,
Leading us, unknowing,
Into paths of light.
Some dear hands are loosened
From our earthly clasp,
Soul in soul to hold us

With a firmer grasp.