EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die, too, in the glass.

Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut,-no light may pass

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,It was not her time to love; beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares;

And now was quiet, now astir,-
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?

What! your soul was pure and true: The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire, and dew; And just because I was thrice as old,

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told? We were fellow-mortals,-naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love;

I claim you still, for my own love's sake!

Delayed, it may be, for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few; Much is to learn and much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come,-at last it will,—
When, Evelyn Hope, what is meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth,-in the years long still,-
That body and soul are so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red,—
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; Yet one thing,-one,-in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me, And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope' What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while :

My heart seemed full as it could hold,— There was place and to spare for the frank young

FAREWELL.

HE same year calls, and one goes hence with another,

And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet song's sake;

The same year beckons, and younger with elder brother,

Takes mutely the cup from his hand that we all must take:

They pass ere the leaves be past or the snows be

come,

And the birds are loud, but the lips that outsung them are dumb.

Time takes them home that we loved,-fair names and famous,—

To the soft, long sleep, to the broad, sweet bosom of death:

But the flower of their souls he shall take not away to shame us,

Nor the lips lack song forever, that now lack breath;

For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell,

Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we,-farewell!

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime

With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;

When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove;

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,

And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,

Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light,

As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs

All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong"; Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,

And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

Overlive it - lower yet - be happy! wherefore should I care?

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,

When the ranks are roll'd in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels,

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.

Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wonMother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,

When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and

nearer drawn,

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,

Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men ;

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be;

Saw the heavens filled with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there

rain'd a ghastly dew

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat

central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the southwind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle flags were furl'd

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher,

Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,

Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,

And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,

Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain—

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain: