Lo, the pictured token Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken?
She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies,-- Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances.
Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing: Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing.
Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her?
What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her?
Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor.
And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, Save me! Oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven?
And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters: Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters! If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore.
Had the world nothing she might live to care for?
No second self to say her evening prayer for?
She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming.
Vain?
Let it be so! Nature was her teacher.
What if a lonely and unsistered creature Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded, And double-hued the shining tresses braided, And all the sunlight of the morning shaded?
This her poor book is full of saddest follies, Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, With summer roses twined and wintry hollies.
In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances May fall her little book of dreams and fancies.
Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee.
Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping.
No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping.
ROBINSON OF LEYDEN HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer His wandering flock had gone before, But he, the shepherd, might not share Their sorrows on the wintry shore.
Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! God calls you hence from over sea; Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee.
"Ye go to bear the saving word To tribes unnamed and shores untrod; Heed well the lessons ye have heard From those old teachers taught of God.
"Yet think not unto them was lent All light for all the coming days, And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent In making straight the ancient ways; "The living fountain overflows For every flock, for every lamb, Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." He spake; with lingering, long embrace, With tears of love and partings fond, They floated down the creeping Maas, Along the isle of Ysselmond.
They passed the frowning towers of Briel, The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, And grated soon with lifting keel The sullen shores of Fatherland.
No home for these!--too well they knew The mitred king behind the throne;-- The sails were set, the pennons flew, And westward ho! for worlds unknown.
And these were they who gave us birth, The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, Who won for us this virgin earth, And freedom with the soil they gave.
The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,-- In alien earth the exiles lie,-- Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, His words our noblest battle-cry! Still cry them, and the world shall hear, Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! Ye _have_ not built by Haerlem Meer, Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! ST.

ANTHONY THE REFORMER HIS TEMPTATION No fear lest praise should make us proud! We know how cheaply that is won; The idle homage of the crowd Is proof of tasks as idly done.
A surface-smile may pay the toil That follows still the conquering Right, With soft, white hands to dress the spoil That sun-browned valor clutched in fight.
Sing the sweet song of other days, Serenely placid, safely true, And o'er the present's parching ways The verse distils like evening dew.
But speak in words of living power,-- They fall like drops of scalding rain That plashed before the burning shower Swept o' er the cities of the plain! Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,-- Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, And, smitten through their leprous mail, Strike right and left in hope to sting.
If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,-- Too kind for bitter words to grieve, Too firm for clamor to dismay, When Faith forbids thee to believe, And Meekness calls to disobey,-- Ah, then beware of mortal pride! The smiling pride that calmly scorns Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed In laboring on thy crown of thorns! THE OPENING OF THE PIANO IN the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! Ah me I how I remember the evening when it came! What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas, With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys! Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play." For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills.
So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys.
Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn." Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, (Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,) Hearing a gush of music such as none before, Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door.
Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, "Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) "Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the _bird!_" MIDSUMMER HERE! sweep these foolish leaves away, I will not crush my brains to-day! Look! are the southern curtains drawn?
Fetch me a fan, and so begone! Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf Brought from a parching coral-reef Its breath is heated;--I would swing The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing.
I hate these roses' feverish blood! Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, A long-stemmed lily from the lake, Cold as a coiling water-snake.
Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair, And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes.
Who knows it not,--this dead recoil Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-- The pulse that flutters faint and low When Summer's seething breezes blow! O Nature! bare thy loving breast, And give thy child one hour of rest,-- One little hour to lie unseen Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! So, curtained by a singing pine, Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay In sweeter music dies away.
DE SAUTY AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE The first messages received through the submarine cable were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage who signed himself De Sauty.
Professor Blue-Nose PROFESSOR TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, Holding talk with nations?
Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap, Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature Three times daily patent?
Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal?
Or is he a _mythus_,--ancient word for "humbug"-- Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed Romulus and Remus?
Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty?
Or a living product of galvanic action, Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution?
Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! BLUE-NOSE Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shall hear them answered.
When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, At the polar focus of the wire electric Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us Called himself "DE SAUTY." As the small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, Sucking in the current.
When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger,-- Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,-- And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, "All right! DE SAUTY." From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, Till the land was filled with loud reverberations Of "_All right_ DE SAUTY." When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger,-- Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker,-- Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor Of disintegration.
Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, There was no De Sauty.
Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, C.O.

H.N.Ferrum, Chlor.Flu.Sil.

Potassa, Cale.Sod.Phosph.Mag.Sulphur, Mang.

( ?) Alumin.