This hushed and frozen voice of song Yet haply when your fancy strays And half in dream your gentle gaze Wake with a note so glad, so clear, That birds on wing would pause to hear And you would know-alas, too late!- Is this fond heart that hugs its fate- LOVE LIGHTED. -William Winter. THE silver days, the golden days, Yet the gray days, the dreary days, For in the mingled brightness Too strong to break in any stress, -Margaret E. Sangster. THE LAST LOVER. COME thou, the last, best lover! From vision unto vision-the highest heart could see. 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 kindest lover! Nor can the breaking heart trust any troth but his. -Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. TIRED ONES. So tired; Such weary mothers, love inspired, So spent, undone; On guard above each little one Bent to love's least behest A child clasped to the breast. So weary; stooping low Above sweet sleeping faces when the glow For loved ones, young or old; no cheeks to touch Is empty, having no command 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 burning, blinding meadows When the fervid day is done. If they love the summer rains. Ask the linnets and the plovers, Will they tell you for your pains! Do I, darling, do I love 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, If it would-hush, darling, come ! -Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. THE WANDERER. LOVE comes back to an empty heart, The dear old light in the tender eyes And warms the life that was cold and drear. The old, old love of the days of yore! Is it not deeper than e'er before, To cheer, to guide and for ever bless? Speak to me; say you have come to stay. Who can be sure of Love's replies, SLEEP AND DEATH. WHEN Sleep drops down beside my Love and me, In separate barks, far out on Dreamland's sea 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 -Ella Wheeler- Wilcox. LOVE UNEXPRESSED. THE sweetest notes among the human heart-strings The sweetest chords, adjusted by the angels, We pipe and pipe again for dreary music While sounds of crime and fear and desolation, On through the world we go, an army marching, Each longing, sighing for the heavenly music Each longing, sighing for a word of comfort, A word of love, to cheer the endless journey They love us, and we know it; this suffices Why should they pause to give that love expression Why should they pause? But still our hearts are aching Of hungry love that longs to hear the music, We love them, and we know it; if we falter, Among the unused strings of love's expression, We shrink within ourselves, in voiceless sorrow, |