And again I was nestled in my white bed
Under the eaves, and hearing above
The feet of the rain-steeds over my head,
While I dreamed sweet dreams of you, my love.

Love, my lover, with eyes of truth,

O beautiful love of the vanished years, There is no other love like the love of youth, I say it over and over with tears.

Wealth and honor and fame may come,

They cannot replace what is taken away; There is no other home like the childhood's home, No other love like the love of May.

Though the sun is bright in the mid-day skies, There cometh an hour when the sad heart grieves

With a lonely wail, like a lost child's cry,

For the trundle-bed and the sloping eaves;

When, with vague unrest and nameless pain,
We hunger and thirst for a voice and touch
That we never on earth shall know again
Oh, a rainy day brings back so much!

UNFINISHED STILL.

A BABY'S boot and a skein of wool,
Faded and soiled and soft;

Odd things, you say, and I doubt you 're right,
Round a seaman's neck, this stormy night,
Up in the yards aloft.

Most likely it's folly; but, mate, look here!
When first I went to sea,

A woman stood on yon far-off strand
With a wedding ring on the small soft hand
Which clung close to me.

My wife, God bless her!

Sat she beside my foot;

-the day before

And the sunlight kissed her yellow hair,
And the dainty fingers, deft and fair,
Knitted a baby's boot.

The voyage was over; I came ashore;
What think you I found there?
A grave the daisies had sprinkled white,
A cottage empty and dark at night,
And this beside the chair,

The little boot, 't was unfinished still;
The tangled skein lay near;

But the knitter had gone away to her rest,
With the babe asleep on her quiet breast,
Down in the churchyard drear.

A VAGRANT.

I CANNOT check my thought these days,
When incense lingers in the air,
But with unwearied wing it strays,
I know not how or where.

I know not where the blossoms hide
That throw their lures across its flight;
How stars can fling their gates so wide,
To give my thought delight.

There is no door close barred and sealed
Where cowers suffering or sin,
But will to touch or whisper yield,
And let this vagrant in.

It bears no passport, no parole,
But, free and careless as the air,

My thought despises all control,
And wanders everywhere.

Its warrant from the Throne of thrones,
Its duty to the King of kings,

Through heights, and depths, and circling zones

It soars on seraph wings.

What canst thou bring from yon fair height,

What bring me from the deepening sea?

What gather for thy own delight

That is not wealth to me?

Scribner's Magazine.

175

JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

THE night hours wane, the bleak winds of December
Sweep through the branches of the singing pine,

And while I watch each slowly dying ember
I dream of joys that never may be mine.

The vacant chair, the room so sad and lonely,
Bring visions of a home 'neath other skies,
A home created by my fancy only,

My heart's true rest, my earthly paradise.

In the night watches when my hands are folded
In weary calm upon my hopeless breast,
These bright creatures, by my heart's love moulded,
Quicken its beat, and rise all unrepressed.

Roof-tree and tower and portal rise unaided;
Aladdin like, their instant birth I see ;
And at love's shrine, by doubtings uninvaded,
I offer up my wild idolatry.

Only the fire's warm heart, intensely glowing,

Sends languid throbs of brightness through the gloom, And gorgeous flowers, with tropic life o'erflowing, Pour on the peaceful air their sweet perfume.

Now clasp I in my arms my long-sought treasure,
Now a dear head is pillowed on my breast;
And with a joy no earthly tongue can measure,
Warm, trembling lips to mine are fondly pressed.

For thou art with me, with thy presence blessing,
Thou dearest, best, my first love and my last;
Within thy arms, thy purest love possessing,
Darkness is gone, and night is overpast.

O rapturous kisses! passionate caressing!
O heart's quick beating with a wild delight!
O murmured words, our mutual love confessing!
Parted no more, at last it is good-night.

AN OLD SONG.

You laugh as you turn the yellow page
Of that queer old song you sing,
And wonder how folks could ever see
A charm in the simple melody
Of such an old-fashioned thing.

That yellow page was fair to view,
That quaint old type was fresh and new,
That simple strain was our delight
When here we gathered night by night,
And thought the music of our day

An endless joy to sing and play,

In our youth, long, long ago.
A joyous group we loved to meet,
When hope was high and life was sweet;
When romance shed its golden light,
That circled, in a nimbus bright,

O'er Time's unwrinkled brow.

The lips are mute that sang these words; The hands are still that struck these chords; The loving heart is cold.

From out the circle, one by one,

Some dear companion there has gone.

While others stay to find how true

That life has chord and discord too,
And all of us are old.

'Tis not alone when music thrills,
The power of thought profound that fills
The soul! 'T is not all art!
The old familiar tones we hear
Die not upon the listening ear;
They vibrate in the heart.

And now you know the reason, dear,
Why I have kept and treasured here
This song of bygone years.

You laugh at the old-fashioned strain;
It brings my childhood back again,
And fills my eyes with tears.

THE BOAT-HORN.

OH, list the boat-horn's wild refrain,
O'er eve's still waters stealing clear!
So softly sweet, so sad a strain

Ne'er woke before to charm the ear.
From out the past it brings once more,
As waking echoes of a dream,
The tree-clad hills, the isles and shore,
Of wild Ohio's winding stream.

Out on the wave while sweeping down
The boatman trod his little deck,
And dreamed, while lay his all around,
Of strange adventure, storm, and wreck.
That strain he wound his way to cheer

In dewy eve and golden morn;
The startled Indian paused to hear,
In echoes sweet, that simple horn.

He came, rough courier of the men,
The thronging thousands pressing on,
With axes ringing in the glen,

And camps the gleaming hills upon.
Gone are the forests, gone the race,
The dusky shadows of the shore;
The hum of busy life keeps pace
To music of the steamer's roar.

O boatman, wind thy horn again,
The simple music of the heart;
What memories live along its strain,

And into being softly start!

The wood-crowned hills, the isles, the stream, In sweetest musings wide expand;

I see as in a summer's dream

The romance of my native land.

THE OLD DEACON'S LAMENT.

YES, I've been a deacon of our church
Nigh on to fifty year,

Walked in the way of dooty, too,

And kep' my conscience clear.
I've watched the children growin' up,

Seen brown locks turnin' gray,

But never saw sech doin's yet
As those I've seen to-day.

This church was built by godly men
To glorify the Lord,

In seventeen hundred eighty-eight;
Folks could n't then afford
Carpets, cushings, and sech like
The seats were jest plain wood,
Too narrer for the sleepy ones;
In prayer we allus stood.

And when the hymns were given out,
I tell you it was grand

To hear our leader start the tunes,

With tunin'-fork in hand!

Then good old "China," "Mear," and all,

Were heard on Sabbath days,

And men and women, boys and girls,

J'ined in the song of praise.

But that old pulpit was my pride —
Jest eight feet from the ground
They'd reared it up- - on either side
A narrer stairs went down;