ANNA BOYNTON AVERILL. 315 "Are men born so, with that white cockade?" Said the little field-mouse to the old brown rat. "Why, you silly child," the sage replied, "This is the bridegroom, they know him by that. Saith the snail so snug in his dappled shell, Slowly stretching one cautious horn, As the beetle was hurrying by so brisk, Much to his snailship's inward scorn: "Why does that creature ride by so fast? Has a fire broke out to the east or west?" "Your Grace, he rides to the weddingfeast," "Let the madman go. What I want 's ANNA BOYNTON AVERILL. [U. s. A.] BIRCH STREAM. AT noon, within the dusty town, Where the wild river rushes down, And thunders hoarsely all day long, I think of thee, my hermit stream, Low singing in thy summer dream, Thine idle, sweet, old, tranquil song. Northward, Katahdin's chasmed pile Again the sultry noontide hush Whose clear bell rings and dies away Where nodding buds of orchis sleep Beside thy banks, in coverts deep, In dusk, and dream not it is day. Again the wild cow-lily floats In thy cool coves of softened gloom, O'ershadowed by the whispering reed, And purple plumes of pickerel-weed, And meadow-sweet in tangled bloom. The startled minnows dart in flocks Beneath thy glimmering amber rocks, If but a zephyr stirs the brake; The silent swallow swoops, a flash Of light, and leaves, with dainty plash, A ring of ripples in her wake. The level fields in languor swim, Their stubble-grasses brown as dust; Within, is neither blight nor death, The fierce sun woos with ardent breath, But cannot win thy sylvan heart. Only the child who loves thee long, With faithful worship pure and strong, Can know how dear and sweet thou art. EDWIN ARNOLD. "HE AND SHE." "SHE is dead!" they said to him. "Come away; Kiss her and leave her, thy love is clay!" They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair; On her forehead of stone they laid it fair; Over her eyes that gazed too much With a tender touch they closed up well The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell; About her brows and beautiful face They tied her veil and her marriage lace, And drew on her white feet her white silk shoes - He and she; still she did not move Then he said: "Cold lips and breasts without breath, Is there no voice, no language of death? "Dumb to the ear and still to the sense, But to heart and to soul distinct, intense? "See now; I will listen with soul, not ear; What was the secret of dying, dear? "Was it the infinite wonder of all That you ever could let life's flower fall? "Or was it a greater marvel to feel The perfect calm o'er the agony steal? "Was the miracle greater tofind how deep Beyond all dreams sank downward that sleep? "Did life roll back its records, dear, Which were the whitest no eye could And show, as they say it does, past choose And over her bosom they crossed her hands. things clear? And was it the innermost heart of the bliss "Come away!" they said; "God under-To find out so, what a wisdom love is? stands." With a shudder, to glance at its stillness and gloom. But he who loved her too well to dread The sweet, the stately, the beautiful I would say, though the Angel of Death dead, He lit his lamp and took the key He and she; yet she would not smile, had laid His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid. "You should not ask vainly, with streaming eyes, Which of all deaths was the chiefest surprise, "The very strangest and suddenest thing Though he called her the name she loved | Of all the surprises that dying must That treasure of his treasury, Allah glorious! Allah good! In enlarging paradise, Lives a life that never dies. Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell; Where I am, ye, too, shall dwell. I am gone before your face, A moment's time, a little space. |