This hushed and frozen voice of song
Must never live again.

Yet haply when your fancy strays
O'er unregarded things,

And half in dream your gentle gaze
Falls on its shattered strings,
Some loving impulse may endear
Your memories of the past,
And if for me you shed one tear,
I think 'twould wake at last.

Wake with a note so glad, so clear,
So lovely, so complete,

That birds on wing would pause to hear
Its music wild and sweet;

And you would know-alas, too late!-
How tender and how true

Is this fond heart that hugs its fate-
To die for love and you.

LOVE LIGHTED.

-William Winter.

THE silver days, the golden days,
The days of sunny weather,
With amber on the mountain line
And violet on the heather,
Are but remembered days, love,
Far fled from thee and me;
The lost delight is out of sight,
And lorn and lone are we.

Yet the gray days, the dreary days,
With gusty storms blown hither,
And cloud rack smitten of the blast
And driven any whither-
Through sob and moan and anguish
These days of muffled gloom
Their coronal of glory wear,
Which deathless stars illume.

For in the mingled brightness
Of other years, a tether

Too strong to break in any stress,
Bound our two souls together;
And better pain with thee, love,
With thee, true heart to heart,
Than all the vanished sunshine,
And thou and I apart.

-Margaret E. Sangster.

THE LAST LOVER.

COME thou, the last, best lover!
For life hath been a rover

From vision unto vision-the highest heart could see.
I seek the truest lover!

No less than he can move her

Whose human faith did perish of its constancy!

Oh, come! thou Awful Lover!

Draw near, and close and cover

The trembling lips that ope not to any cry but this :
Death is the dearest lover!

Death is the kindest lover!

Nor can the breaking heart trust any troth but his.

-Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

TIRED ONES.

So tired;

Such weary mothers, love inspired,
But worn with love's demands
Until the trembling hands
Falter above their tasks, and stay
While white lips pray.

So spent, undone;

On guard above each little one
As though each dying day
Carried no tired mothers far away
From their fond world, and so
They fain would go

Bent to love's least behest

A child clasped to the breast.

So weary; stooping low

Above sweet sleeping faces when the glow
Of twilight fades, but not so tired as they
Who have no care all day

For loved ones, young or old; no cheeks to touch
With kisses, as they sleep, or such
Dear riches as love brings-
Dearer than diadem of kings.
The weariest hand

Is empty, having no command
Of loving lips, no care of age or youth;
No lips to call for it, in truth,

From purple dawn till night-no wealth to hold

Dearer than fretted gold.

-George Klingle.

WHAT THE VIOLINS SAID.

["We're all for love," the violins said.-Sidney Lanier.]

Do I love you? Do I love you?
Ask the heavens that bend above you,
To find language and to prove you
If they love the living sun.

Ask the burning, blinding meadows
If they love the falling shadows-
If they hold the happy shadows

When the fervid day is done.
Ask the blue bells and the daisies,
Lost amid the hot field mazes,
Lifting up their thirsty faces,

If they love the summer rains.

Ask the linnets and the plovers,
In the nest-life made for lovers-
Ask the bees and ask the clovers-

Will they tell you for your pains!

Do I, darling, do I love you?
What, I pray, can that behove you?
How in Love's name can I move you,

When for Love's sake I am dumb?

If I told you, if I told you,

Would that keep you, would that hold you,
Here at last when I enfold you?

If it would-hush, darling, come !

-Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

THE WANDERER.

LOVE comes back to an empty heart,
Or a being clothed in love's sweet guise;
Love bids sorrow and tears depart :

The dear old light in the tender eyes
Like a swift, bright sunbeam hastens here

And warms the life that was cold and drear.

The old, old love of the days of yore!
Is it the same? Oh! Love, confess,

Is it not deeper than e'er before,

To cheer, to guide and for ever bless?
Answer me, Love; turn not away;

Speak to me; say you have come to stay.

Who can be sure of Love's replies,
Hiding behind his myriad masks?
Yet to my soul this dear disguise
Savours of Heaven: 'tis all it asks.
Swift, sweet tears to the eyelids start:
Love comes back to an empty heart.
-James Clarence Harvey.

SLEEP AND DEATH.

WHEN Sleep drops down beside my Love and me,
Although she wears the countenance of a friend,
A jealous foe we prove her in the end.

In separate barks, far out on Dreamland's sea
She lures our wedded souls. Wild winds blow free
And drift us wide apart, by tides that tend

Toward unknown worlds. Not once our strange ways blend Through the long night, while Sleep looks on in glee.

O Death, be kinder than thy sister seems!

When at thy call we journey forth some day

Through that mysterious and unatlased strait
To lands more distant than the land of dreams,
Close, close together let our spirits stay,
Or else, with one swift stroke, annihilate !

-Ella Wheeler- Wilcox.

LOVE UNEXPRESSED.

THE sweetest notes among the human heart-strings
Are dull with rust;

The sweetest chords, adjusted by the angels,
Are clogged with dust.

We pipe and pipe again for dreary music
Upon the self-same strains,

While sounds of crime and fear and desolation,
Come back again in sad refrains.

On through the world we go, an army marching,
With listening ears,

Each longing, sighing for the heavenly music
He never hears;

Each longing, sighing for a word of comfort,
A word of tender praise,

A word of love, to cheer the endless journey
Of earth's hard, busy days.

They love us, and we know it; this suffices
For reason's share.

Why should they pause to give that love expression
With gentle care?

Why should they pause? But still our hearts are aching
With all the gnawing pain

Of hungry love that longs to hear the music,
And longs and longs in vain.

We love them, and we know it; if we falter,
With fingers numb,

Among the unused strings of love's expression,
The notes are dumb.

We shrink within ourselves, in voiceless sorrow,
Leaving the words unsaid,