And a half-reproach in your eyes' sweet depths, you askt

me why I must go.

I only said that so it must be, and quietly turn'd away; But there broke on my ear a voice, your voice, that bore me the one word Stay.

I turn'd me, Annie, and lookt in your face that was bright with the quick young blood,

And the eyes bedimm'd with the tears that sprang from your tender womanhood;

And I saw that you knew my secret then, yet fear'd that you might have given

Pity for Love, and I would not take aught less than Heaven for my Heaven.

"Good-bye, sweet Annie, good-bye, I will not dwell on what might have been

It cannot be, that is all, my child: Good-bye, little household queen ;

The locks that were wont to be bronze sometime are

turning to silver now—"

And your eyes, for a moment's space, dear heart, were lifted to scan my brow—

And few were the low-ton'd words that brought such joy

The bronze of youth is ruddy and fair-this silver is most to me."

O my true wife, the gem that hour is set in remembrance

gold;

It flooded my heart with a perfect joy whose glory can never be told :

And day by day there grew on your face the look of

great content

Which told me your happiness indeed with me and mine was blent :

Ay, I was glad for that good gift the Father of lights had

sent.

We have been very happy, Dear, through all these wedded

years,

In pleasant places our lot was cast, that, not with the terror of tears,

But the mist of compassion and tender thought from barrenness were kept,

While golden hours span swiftly round and the spirit of sorrow slept.

And oh! for a keener eye to see and a keener ear to

hear,

And swifter feet and tenderer hands and love more large and clear:

And oh! to be kept in the perfect peace earth gives not

nor can destroy,

Until we twain at the last shall come to our God's eternal

joy.

CALLIMA CHUS: A SKETCH.

Lo, when my master lay a-dying, I

Alone, he chose, should wait to see him die.

Soft, fine, and bright, even as web at morn,

Hung round his brow his locks that brow had borne
Much weight of thinking, and the close, grave mouth
Had never curv'd it to the smile that groweth
Of mere light-heartedness. He lay with eyes
Undimm'd of age turn'd full to the sunrise;
And thus he spake in slow tones thrillingly,
Scarce to himself, and scarce, methinks, to me.

"The earth is older now by fifty years

With all their joy and sorrow and smiles and tears,
Since I, a young man, saw my future rise
From the sun's bed, upon my eager eyes,
With slow, symmetric movements gliding on :
And in her curved palms I saw anon,

Or seem'd to see, life, work, and crown in one.
Yet was her face hid wholly from my sight,
Veil'd with a veil of chrysochromal light.

F

Thus to my heart my heart-'The grace to thee
Upon those mute lips' veil'd sublimity,

Is the shaper's hand with the seer's eye to see.'

Yea, with these eyes of mine I saw it pass,
The pageant of life's mystery that was.

Groups of old warriors rose from their death-mist ;
Lips smil'd that funeral-fires long since had kiss'd;
Brows that were calm'd of dreamless sleep, again
Took their old fierceness, resting limbs their strain.
Deeper the wonder grew, diviner still,

Glow'd the Immortals' track on slope and hill.
There, where the sky stoopt down the earth to meet,
It was the rapture of Phoebus' parting feet
Mellow'd the blue and scarlet colours slow
Into the quivering amethystine glow.
It was the breath of loving Dryades
Stirr'd all the leafage of the happy trees.

Lo, in that glory of my days I saw

A maiden standing, with a shadowy awe
Upon her face that mockt her brows' bright wreath
As with the heavy dusk of coming death;
While stern-fac'd men stood waiting till the knife
Should drink with cold blue lips her crimson life.
Then, with the heat upon me, I essay'd

To paint the picture.

When aside I laid

My brush, I knew full well that none would see
In that false picture what was seen of me.
And, though the many did, with partial eyes,
Praise it as beautiful and true, more wise
To mine own condemnation, lifted I
My hands against that work that was a lie.
Those eyes of Zeus had burn'd into my brain,
And better light than joy, though light be pain ;
Yea, Beauty, to my deeming, is in sooth
Bastard that springs not from the womb of Truth.

Years did I toil in patience: grew a face
Upon my canvas, wherein I sought to trace
His woe, by the strong victors' pitiless might
Crusht into silence, smitten into night.

The dead wreath fallen from his loosen'd hair,
The hands dropt listless in his dumb despair.
Look, O mine eyes and gaze, and see in this
The very self-same stricken Thamyris !-
A little doubt that rose flood-high, and swept
My hope away!

I bow'd my face and wept,
As he might weep whom Time not yet may rob
Of the child-right to lift his voice and sob.

Again, more old, more sad, I paus'd to see
A work that was conceiv'd and born of me.
The mortal maid the Immortal God must slay
With splendour, waiting for the hour o' the day