THE leaves which in the autumn of the year
Fall auburn-tinted, leaving reft and bare
Their parent trees, in many a sheltered lair
Where Winter waits and watches, cold, austere,
Will lie in drifts; and when the snowdrops cheer

The woodland shadows, still the leaves are there, Though through the glades the balmy southern air And birds and boughs proclaim that Spring is here.

So lost hopes severed by the stress of life

Lie all unburied yet before our eyes,

Though none but we regard their mute decay; And ever amid this stir and moil and strife Fresh aims and growing purposes arise

Above the faded hopes of yesterday.

LOUISA S. BEVINGTON.

XIII.

LOVE'S DEPTH.

LOVE's height is easy scaling; skies allure ;

Who feels the day-warmth needs must find it fair;
Strong eagles ride the lofty sunlit air,
Risking no rivals while their wings endure.
Yet is thy noblest still thy least secure,

And failing thee-shall then thy love despair?
Shall not thy heart more holily prepare
Some depth unfathomable,-perfect-pure ?

Say that to thee there come Love's dreadful call
The downward swiftness of thy Best to see;
Say that he sin or sicken, what of thee?
Are thine arms deeper yet to stay his fall?

Scarcely love's utmost may in heaven be;

To hell it reacheth so 'tis love at all.

XIV.

WISHES OF YOUTH.

GAILY and greenly let my seasons run:

And should the war-winds of the world uproot

The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit

Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun;

The dews be turned to ice-fair days begun

In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit
Despair and discord keep Hope's harpstring mute;

Still let me live as Love and Life were one:
Still let me turn on earth a child-like gaze,

And trust the whispered charities that bring Tidings of human truth; with inward praise Watch the weak motion of each common thing

And find it glorious-still let me raise

On wintry wrecks an altar to the Spring.

MATHILDE BLIND.

XV.

THE DEAD.

THE dead abide with us! Though stark and cold
Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still.
They have forged our chains of being for good or ill;
And their invisible hands these hands yet hold.

Our perishable bodies are the mould

In which their strong imperishable will-
Mortality's deep yearning to fulfil—

Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold.

Vibrations infinite of life in death,

As a star's travelling light survives its star!

So may we hold our lives, that when we are The fate of those who then will draw this breath, They shall not drag us to their judgment-bar, And curse the heritage which we bequeath.

XVI.

CLEAVE THOU THE WAVES.

CLEAVE thou the waves that weltering to and fro
Surge multitudinous. The eternal Powers

Of sun, moon, stars, the air, the hurrying hours,
The winged winds, the still dissolving show
Of clouds in calm or storm, for ever flow
Above thee; while the abysmal sea devours
The untold dead insatiate, where it lowers
O'er glooms unfathom'd, limitless, below.

No longer on the golden-fretted sands,

Where many a shallow tide abortive chafes,
Mayst thou delay; life onward sweeping blends
With far-off heaven: the dauntless one who braves

The perilous flood with calm unswerving hands,
The elements sustain: cleave thou the waves.