to her nest,

In the nice ear of Nature which song, is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,

We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,

'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing ing: That skies are clear and grass is growThe breeze comes whispering in our

ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that

streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,

And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year,

Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;

Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be

true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,

'Tis the natural way of living:

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.

AFTER THE BURIAL.

YES, faith is a goodly anchor;
When skies are sweet as a psalm,
At the bows it lolls so stalwart,
In bluff, broad-shouldered calm.

And when over breakers to leeward
The tattered surges are hurled.
It may keep our head to the tempest,
With its grip on the base of the
world.

But, after the shipwreck, tell me
What help in its iron thews,
Still true to the broken hawser,
Deep down among sea-weed and
ooze?

In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, When the helpless feet stretch out And find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt,

Then better one spar of memory,
One broken plank of the past,
That our human heart may cling to,
Though hopeless of shore at last!

To the spirit its splendid conjectures,
To the flesh its sweet despair,
Its tears o'er the thin-worn locket
With its anguish of deathless hair!

Immortal? I feel it and know it,
Who doubts it of such as she?
But that is the pang's very secret;
Immortal away from me!

There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard

Would scarce stay a child in his

race,

But to me and my thought, it is wider Than the star-sown vague of space.