But wait till Spring's first days are dawni To glad and cheer thee;

And then, sweet Minstrel of the morning I'd wish to hear thee.

DIRGE.

Those sweet spots where are "blended
Home-comforts and school-training."
Now they're, I dare say, venting

Their grief in transient sobs,
And I am "left lamenting

At home with Mrs. Dobbs.

But ah! for them, whose laughter
We heard last New Year's Day,
(They recked not of Hereafter,
Or what the Doctor 'd say,)
For those small forms that fluttered
Moth-like around the plate,
When Sally brought the buttered
Buns in at halt-past eight!

Ah, for the altered visage
Of her, our tiny Belle,
Whom my boy Gus (at his age!)
Said was a "deuced swell!"
Perhaps now Miss Tickler's tocsin

Has caged that pert young linnet;

Old Birch perhaps is boxing

My Gus's ears this minute.

Yet, though your young ears be as
Red as mamma's geraniums,

Yet grieve not! Thus ideas

Pass into infant craniums.

Use not complaints unseemly;

Though you must work like bricks;

25

26

DIRGE.JANUARY.

And it is cold, extremely,
Rising at half-past six.

Soon sunnier will the day grow,
And the east wind not blow so;
Soon, as of yore, L'Allegro

Succeed Il Penseroso;

Stick to your Magnall's Questions

And Long Division sums,

And come

with good digestions

Home when next Christmas comes.

CHARLES STUART CAI

JANUARY.

THEN came old January, wrapped well
In many weeds to keep the cold away;
Yet did he quake and quiver, like to quell,
And blow his nails to warm them if he may;
For they were numbed with holding all the da
An hatchet keen, with which he felled wood
And from the trees did lop the needless spray
Upon a huge great earth-pot stone he stood,
From whose wide mouth there flowèd fort

Roman flood.

EDMUND SPENSI

The Faerie

JANUARY.—A WINTER WALK.

JANUARY.

O DARK and cold! O dead and drear!
O bitter end of weary strife!

Art thou indeed the glad New Year,
Thou stillborn mockery of life?

And art thou then the final fate,

The end for which our years were born,

So white, so still, so desolate,

A night that never leads to morn?

It is not peace, this frozen calm,
And yet it is surcease of pain,
Nepenthe is the surest balm,

For wounds so healed, bleed not again.

Yes, we will love thee, month of death,
Yes, we will call thee glad New Year.
Freeze with thy kiss my weary breath,
See, I am thine, I know no fear.

27

MRS. JANE [GOODWIN] AUSTIN.

A WINTER WALK.

We never had believed, I wis,

At primrose time when west winds stole Like thoughts of youth across the soul, In such an altered time as this,

28

A WINTER WALK.

When if one little flower did peep

Up through the brown and sullen grass,
We should just look on it and pass
As if we saw it in our sleep.

Feeling as sure as that this ray

Which cottage children call the sun,
Colors the pale clouds one by one,
Our touch would make it drop to clay.

We never could have looked, in prime
Of April, or when July trees
Shook full-leaved in the evening breeze,
Upon the face of this pale time,

Still, soft, familiar; shining bleak
On naked branches, sodden ground,
Yet shining- as if one had found
A smile upon a dead friend's cheek,

Or old friend, lost for years, had strange
In altered mien come sudden back,
Confronting us with our great lack —
Till loss seemed far less sad than strange.

Yet though, alas! Hope did not see

This winter skeleton through full leaves, Out of all bareness Faith perceives Possible life in field and tree.