MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING. But rather raised to be a nobler man,

And more divine in my humanity,

SHE is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.

I never saw a fairer,

I never lo'ed a dearer,

And neist my heart I 'll wear her,
For fear my jewel tine.

She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.

HOME.

The warld's wrack we share o't,
The warstle and the care o't:
Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,
And think my lot divine.

ROBERT BURNS.

As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan
My life are lighted by a purer being,

And ask meek, calm-browed deeds, with it agree-
ing.

SONNETS.

My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die; I THOUGHT our love at full, but I did err;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not

see

Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss,
While Time and Peace with hands unlockèd fly,-
Yet care I not where in Eternity

We live and love, well knowing that there is
No backward step for those who feel the bliss
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high :
Love hath so purified my being's core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even,
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;
Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was
given,

That sorrow in our happy world must be
Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter.
But, as a mother feels her child first stir
Under her heart, so felt I instantly
Deep in my soul another bond to thee
Thrill with that life we saw depart from her;
O mother of our angel child! twice dear!
Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis,
Her tender radiance shall infold us here,
Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss,

Which each calm day doth strengthen more and Threads the void glooms of space without a fear,
To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss.

more,

That they who love are but one step from Heaven.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWEll.

ADAM TO EVE.

FROM "PARADISE LOST," BOOK IX.

I CANNOT think that thou shouldst pass away,
Whose life to mine is an eternal law,
A piece of nature that can have no flaw,
A new and certain sunrise every day;
But, if thou art to be another ray
About the Sun of Life, and art to live
Free from all of thee that was fugitive,
The debt of Love I will more fully pay,
Not downcast with the thought of thee so high, Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress

O FAIREST of creation, last and best
Of all God's works, creature in whom excelled
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!

The strict forbiddance, how to violate
The sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursèd fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruined, for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die.

How can I live without thee, how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

"because

Why, that," she said, "is no reason. Love's
always free, I am told.

Will you vow to be safe from the headache on
Tuesday, and think it will hold ?"

"But I," he replied, "have promised another, when love was free,

“O, that,” she said, "is no reason! Such knots. If a man finds a woman too fair, he means

are quickly undone,

simply adapted too much

And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but
too much sun.

To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise! - shall
I thank you for such?

"Yet farewell so," he answered;

"the sun

stroke's fatal at times.

"Too fair? - not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while,

I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop You attain to it, straightway you call us no rings still from the limes."

longer too fair, but too vile.

I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high?

"O, that," she said, "is no reason. You smell
a rose through a fence :

"A moment, I pray your attention !
a poor word in my head

If two should smell it, what matter? who grum- I must utter, though womanly custom would set bles, and where's the pretence?"

it down better unsaid.

I have

"You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring.

To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No mat

me."

ter! I've broken the thing.

"You did me the honor, perhaps, to be moved | And all stood back, and none my right denied, at my side now and then And forth we walked: the world was free and wide In the senses,

a vice, I have heard, which is Before us. Since that day common to beasts and some men.

you, Maude,

"There! Look me full in the face! - in the
face. Understand, if you can,
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean
as the palm of a man.

POSSESSION.

I was the crescent; thou

"And since, when all's said, you're too noble to
stoop to the frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, The silver phantom of the perfect sphere,
Held in its bosom: in one glory now
Our lives united shine, and many a year-

betray, and supplant,

we

"I determined to prove to yourself that, what- Not the sweet moon of bridal only One lustre, ever at the full, shall be:

e'er you might dream or avow

By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me One pure and rounded light, one planet whole,
than you have now.
One life developed, one completed soul !
For I in thee, and thou in me,
Unite our cloven halves of destiny.

"You wronged me but then I considered .. there's Walter! And so at the end,

I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend.

God knew his chosen time.

He bade me slowly ripen to my prime,
And from my boughs withheld the promised fruit,
Till storm and sun gave vigor to the root.
Secure, O Love! secure

'Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for
fear we should cost you a scar,

You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for Thou art become my blood, my life, my light : Thy blessing is: I have thee day and night:

the women we are.

God's mercy thou, and therefore shalt endure.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

"Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine! Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine."

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I count my life: the Past is washed away.

"It was our wedding-day

A month ago," dear heart, I hear you say.
If months, or years, or ages since have passed,
I know not: I have ceased to question Time.
I only know that once there pealed a chime
Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast,

It was no dream, that vow :

It was the voice that woke me from a dream,

A happy dream, I think; but I am waking now,
And drink the splendor of a sun supreme
That turns the mist of former tears to gold.
Within these arms I hold

The fleeting promise, chased so long in vain :
Ah, weary bird! thou wilt not fly again:
Thy wings are clipped, thou canst no more de-
part,
Thy nest is builded in my heart!