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WAITING FOR THE MAY.

AH! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May—
Waiting for the pleasant rambles,

Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,

Scent the dewy way.
Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May-

Longing to escape from study
To the fair young face and ruddy,
And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May-

Sighing for their sure returning

When the summer-beams are burning Hopes and flowers that dead or dying All the winter lay.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,

Ah!

Sighing for the May.

my heart is pained with throbbing, Throbbing for the May

Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows,
Where in laughter and in sobbing
Glide the streams away.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May.

Waiting, sad, dejected, weary,

Waiting for the May.

Spring goes by with wasted warnings—
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings—
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
Life still ebbs away—

Man is ever weary, weary,

Waiting for the May!

DENNIS FLORENCE MCCARTHY.

THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o'er the fire, her blind grandmother sitting,
Is croaning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting,—
"Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping."

'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping."

"Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing."

"'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind

dying."

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring.

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's

stirring;

[graphic]

"WHAT'S THAT NOISE THAT I HEAR AT THE WINDOW ?"

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

"What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?"

"'Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under." "What makes you be shoving and moving your

stool on,

And singing all wrong that old song of 'The Coolun'?"

There's a form at the casement, the form of her true love,

And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love;

Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fin

gers,

Steals up from her seat,—longs to go, and yet lingers;

A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grand

mother,

Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the

other.

Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her

The maid steps, then leaps to the arms of her lover. Slower and slower-and slower the wheel swings; Lower-and lower-and lower the reel rings;

Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and

moving,

Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight

are roving.

JOHN FRANCIS WALLER.

AN UNTIMELY THOUGHT.

I WONDER What day of the week-
I wonder what month of the year—
Will it be midnight, or morning,
And who will bend over my bier?

-What a hideous fancy to come
As I wait, at the foot of the stair,
While Lilian gives the last touch
To her robe, or the rose in her hair.

Do I like your new dress -pompadour ?
And do I like you? On my life,
You are eighteen, and not a day more,
And have not been six years my wife.

Those two rosy boys in the crib
Up-stairs are not ours, to be sure !—
You are just a sweet bride in her bloom,
All sunshine, and snowy, and pure.

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