"Ah, yes, I have thought of that before; she may be lying low

With violets quick on her dear dead breast; God's will be done, if so;

Or else she may have thought me dead, and given herself to one

As true and loving as I could be ;-to say God's will be

done

Truly were harder if so it were; in the book of the heart I have read

More bitter is grief for the living lost than ever it is for the dead.

All's in God's hands; but somehow I feel so strong in my love and trust

I think that He will not suffer this hope of mine to crumble to dust.

She cannot else be lost I know ;-there's a word that Society uses

When a frivolous woman plays with a heart as long as her fancy chooses,

Then casts the poor plaything away for others to toy with, unless, indeed,

It be too much broken for that, and cares not and takes not the slightest heed

Flirting they call it—but she, yes, she is so pure and true and high,

As far above that unwomanly shame as a star in its depth

of sky,

And all that is lofty and beautiful in her is so surely

blent,

My treasure perhaps may be lost to me, but it cannot have thus been spent."

I had seen her again, my statue-love, she had met me with never a touch

Of true-love joyaunce and eager bliss, and my whole soul crav'd for such :

I had lookt in vain, in vain, for the crimson beacon of love on her cheek,

As a watcher looks with longing eyes to the East for the morning-streak.

Tender and meek as of old she was, and I thought "Has she come to forget

The Past with its sweetness and bitterness, and will she love me yet?"

Such women never forget, albeit, outliving their agony, From their sweet souls is born the grace of infinite charity.

We were sitting together one eventide; her hand lay light in mine,

The quiet hand that, to-morrow morn, was to wear my marriage-sign :

I was reading a quaint old ballad aloud that pleas'd my lady much,

When we heard a footstep-an open'd door-and she drew her hand from my touch,

And lifted her eyes—and then-O Will !—with a cry, on my heart that rang

As a joybell might on a doom'd man's ear who waits for

his death, she sprang,

With a deer-like bound in the eager joy that quiver'd through all her frame

To her home on his breast for evermore, and he kiss'd her and nam'd her name.

Only a moment thus they stood, forgetting all but the joy Of a love whose infinite sweetness and strength nor time nor pain could destroy,

And then she started back from his arms with a glorious crimson glow,

Love's banner, flasht out over her face from her chin to her very brow;

So was the wonderful loveliness now full-lit by the light of the human,

Grown beneath love's true hand at once to the fairest beauty of woman.

My heart sent forth a desperate cry as wordless I past from the door,

Like the last long wail of one who is drown'd in sight of the ship and the shore.

There is the end ;—there's a grand old truth that never grows dull or trite,

All that God does, and the way He does it, is sure to be wise and right.

And I call it nothing but casting reproach on Him and His perfect plan,

Who made the love of man for woman, the love of woman

for man,

When those who have lost that bliss, or those to whom it has been denied,

Sneer at the holy name of love and smother with selfish

pride

The seeds of the sacred flowers God holds to be given in service meet

When twin'd for a darling's brow or laid at tir'd humanity's feet.

And life has autumn and winter joys left yet, and I love

to see

Her little children, whom I had hop'd should be mine, around my knee :

Ay, give me your hand, old friend, true friend-there was once a tender and true man

Like you, who gave to his friend a love passing the love of woman.

MARGARET, A MARTYR.

THE dying man tost from side to side;
The nurse stoopt down in the twilight dim,
And smooth'd his brow to quiet him :

"He may dream of his mother's hand," she said,
"By the touch of mine on his restless head."
But he, with eyeballs staring wide,

Clutcht at that gentle hand of hers,

And moan'd, "O voice of the sea, the sea!

The curse of its voice! the curse! the curse!'

The house where he lay was far enough

From the roaring and beating of the sea;

Far away from the blast, said she,

That shrieks on the foam-fleckt crags. But he Answer'd in accents hard and rough,

"Woman, I tell you wave on wave

Dashes along with a dread white crest,
Taking its spoil of my last long rest;
I shall hear the sound in my very grave."