SELECTIONS,

DESIGNED FOR SINGLE RECITATIONS NOT FOR READING IN CLASSES.

EVELYN HOPE.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

She plucked that piece of geranium flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass.

Little has yet been changed, I think :

The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Robert Browning.

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;

It was not her time to love; beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough, and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew,
And just because I was thrice as old,

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,

Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals, nought beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:

I claim you still, for my own love's sake!

Delayed it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:

Much is to learn and much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come, - at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,

In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium's red
And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed meAnd I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seemed full as it could hold
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile
And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold.
So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep-

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.

There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

ANNABEL LEE.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

Edgar A. Poe.

That a maiden there lived, whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love, and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea:

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Annabel Lee

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heave 1,
Went envying her and me,

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we,

Of many far wiser than we;

And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so all the night-time, I lie down by the side

Of my darling-my darling—my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

MOTHER AND POET.

TURIN, AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861.

Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman, men said;

But this woman, this, who is agonized here,

Mrs. Browning.

-The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head

For ever instead.

Y

What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain!
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed
And I proud, by that test.

What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees

Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little! to sew by degrees

And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat;
To dream and to doat.

To teach them. . It stings there! I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.

And when their eyes flashed.. O my beautiful eyes!
I exulted; nay, let them go
Of the guns, and denied not.

When one sits quite alone!

God, how the house

forth at the wheels
But then the surprise

Then one weeps, then one kneels! feels!

At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled

With my kisses,

of camp-life and glory, and how

They both loved me; and, soon coming home to be spoiled,
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

Then was triumph at Turin! "Ancona was free!"
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street..

I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
To the height he had gained.

And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand, "I was not to faint, —

One loved me for two-would be with me ere long:
And Viva l'Italia! - he died for, our saint,

Who forbids our complaint."

My Nannie would add, "he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls, was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest."

On which, without pause, up the telegraph line

Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : -Shot. Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother, not "mine," No voice says "My mother" again to me. What!

You think Guido forgot?

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark
To the face of Thy Mother! Consider, I pray,

How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,

Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say!

Both boys dead? but that's out of nature.

We all

Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.

'T were imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;

And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta 's taken, what then?

When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? When the guns of Cavalli with final retort,

Have cut the game short?

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,

When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,

When you have your country from mountain to sea,

When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,

(And I have my Dead)