SIXTH YEAR

THE GRAY SWAN

ALICE CARY

"OH! tell me, sailor, tell me true, Is my little lad, my Elihu,

A-sailing with your ship?"

The sailor's eyes were dim with dew, "Your little lad, your Elihu?"

He said with trembling lip,-
"What little lad? What ship?"

"What little lad? as if there could be

Another such a one as he !

What little lad, do you say?

Why, Elihu, that took to the sea

The moment I put him off my knee!

It was just the other day

The Gray Swan sailed away!"

"The other day?"

The sailor's eyes

Stood open with a great surprise:

"The other day?

the Swan?"

His heart began in his throat to rise.

"Ay, ay, sir! here in the cupboard lies The jacket he had on! "

"And so your lad is gone?"

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"Gone with the Swan." "And did she stand With her anchor clutching hold of the sand,

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For a month, and never stir?”

Why, to be sure! I've seen from the land,
Like a lover kissing his lady's hand,

The wild sea kissing her,

A sight to remember, sir!"

"But, my good mother, do you know
All this was twenty years ago?

I stood on the Gray Swan's deck,
And to that lad I saw you throw,
Taking it off, as it might be, so!
The kerchief from your neck."

"And did the little lawless lad,

That has made you sick and made you sad,
Sail with the Gray Swan's crew?"

"Lawless! The man is going mad!
The best boy ever mother had : —

Be sure he sailed with the crew!

What would you have him do?"

"And he has never written line,

Nor sent you word, nor made you sign,

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Το say he was alive?"

"Hold! if 't was wrong, the wrong is mine;

Besides, he may be in the brine;

And could he write from the grave?

Tut, man! What would you have?"

"Gone, twenty years, — a long, long cruise, 'T was wicked thus your love to abuse!

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But if the lad still live,

And come back home, think you, you can
Forgive him?"-"Miserable man!
You 're mad as the sea,

What have I to forgive?"

- you rave

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The sailor twitched his shirt so blue,
And from within his bosom drew

The kerchief. She was wild.

"O God, my Father! is it true?
My little lad, my Elihu!

My blessed boy, my child!
My dead, my living child!"

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RAIN IN SUMMER

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,

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Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks;

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;

His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain.

From the neighboring school

In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale

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His pastures, and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

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Walking the fenceless fields of air;

And from each ample fold

Of the clouds about him rolled

Scattering everywhere

The showery rain,

As the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold

Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told, —

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