We've not proud nor soaring wings; With the blue above, and the blue Our ambition, our content, Lies in simple things. below, And silence wheresoe'er I go; Time, like the winged wind When 't bends the flowers, Hath left no mark behind, To count the hours! Now she pales and shrinks away, Earth, into thy gentle bosom! She hath done her bidding here, Angels dear! Some weight of thought, though loath, Bear her perfect soul above, On thee he leaves; Some lines of care round both Perhaps he weaves; Some fears, - a soft regret For joys scarce known; Sweet looks we half forget; All else is flown! Ah!- With what thankless heart Look, where our children start, With tongues all sweet and low SOFTLY WOO AWAY HER BREATH. SOFTLY WOO away her breath, Let her leave thee with no strife, Seraph of the skies, love! Good she was, and fair in youth; And her mind was seen to soar, And her heart was wed to truth: Take her, then, forevermore, Forever-evermore, I DIE FOR THY SWEET LOVE. I DIE for thy sweet love! The ground A hundred men are near thee now; Each one, perhaps, surpassing me; But who doth feel a thousandth part Of what I feel for thee? They look on thee, as men will look, Who round the wild world laugh and rove; I only think how sweet 'twould be To die for thy sweet love! EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. BUT HEAVEN, O LORD, I CANNOT LOSE. Now summer finds her perfect prime! Sweet blows the wind from western calms; On every bower red roses climb; The meadows sleep in mingled balms. Nor stream, nor bank the wayside by, But lilies float and daisies throng, Nor space of blue and sunny sky That is not cleft with soaring song. O flowery morns, O tuneful eves, The drifting snows on plain and hill. Alike to me, fall frosts and dews; But Heaven, O Lord, I cannot lose! Warm hands to-day are clasped in mine; Fond hearts my mirth or mourning share: CONTOOCOOK RIVER. Or all the streams that seek the sea Monadnock's child, of snow-drifts born, The snows of many a winter morn, sweep The over-floods of pool and lake, O have you seen, from Hillsboro' town How fast its tide goes hurrying down, With rapids now, and now a leap Past giant boulders, black and steep, Plunged in mid water, fain to keep Its current from the meadows green ? But, flecked with foam, it speeds along; And not the birch trees' silvery sheen, Nor the soft lull of whispering pines, Nor hermit thrushes, fluting low, Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow Where clematis, the fairy, twines, Can stay its course, or still its song; Ceaseless it flows till, round its bed, The vales of Henniker are spread, Their banks all set with golden grain, Or stately trees whose vistas gleamA double forest in the stream; |