Song-sparrows warble on the tree,
I hear the purling brook,

And from the old "manse o'er the lea"
Flies slow the cawing crow.

(In England 'twere a rook!)

The last faint golden beams of day
Still glow on cottage panes,
And on their lingering homeward way
Walk weary laboring men.
(Oh, that we had swains!)

From farm-yards, down fair rural glades
Come sounds of tinkling bells,
And songs of merry brown milkmaids,

Sweeter than oriole's.

(Yes, thank you-Philomel's!)

I could sit here till morning came,
All through the night hours dark,
Until I saw the sun's bright flame
And heard the chickadee.
(Alas! we have no lark!)

We have no leas, no larks, no rooks,
No swains, no nightingales,
No singing milkmaids (save in books):
The poet does his best-

It is the rhyme that fails!

Nathan Haskell Dole.

I

CAELI

F stars were really watching eyes
Of angel armies in the skies,

I should forget all watchers there,
And only for your glances care.

And if your eyes were really stars,
With leagues that none can mete for bars
To keep me from their longed-for day,
I could not feel more far away.

Francis William Bourdillon.

LADY MINE

ADY mine, most fair thou art

LADY

With youth's gold and white and red; 'Tis a pity that thy heart

Is so much harder than thy head.

This has stayed my kisses oft,

This from all thy charms debarr'd,
That thy head is strangely soft,
While thy heart is strangely hard.

Nothing had kept us apart

I had loved thee, I had wed-
Hadst thou had a softer heart
Or a harder head.

But I think I'll bear Love's smart

Till the wound has healed and fled, Or thy head is like thy heart,

Or thy heart is like thy head.

ΤΗ

Herbert Edwin Clarke.

THE RIPEST PEACH*

'HE ripest peach is highest on the tree-
And so her love, beyond the reach of me,
Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes, bow
Her heart down to me where I worship now!

She looms aloft where every eye may see
The ripest peach is highest on the tree.
Such fruitage as her love I know, alas!
I may not reach here from the orchard

grass.

her lips

I drink the sunshine showered past
As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips.
The ripest peach is highest on the tree,
And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly.

Why-why do I not turn away in wrath

And pluck some heart here hanging in my path ?— Love's lower boughs bend with them-but, ah me! The ripest peach is highest on the tree.

James Whitcomb Riley.

* From "Old-Fashioned Roses," copyright 1906. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

"I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE SPRING"

JOURNEYED South to meet the Spring
To feel the soft tide's gentle rise
That to my heart again should bring,
Foretold by many a whispering wing,
The old, the new, the sweet surprise.

For once, the wonder was not new-
And yet it wore a newer grace:

For all its innocence of hue,

Its warmth and bloom and dream and dew,

I had but left-in Helen's face.

Robert Underwood Johnson.

BEFORE THE BLOSSOM

N the tassel-time of spring
Love's the only song to sing;
Ere the ranks of solid shade

Hide the bluebird's flitting wing,
While in open forest glade
No mysterious sound or thing

Haunt of green has found or made,
Love's the only song to sing.

Though in May each bush be dressed
Like a bride, and every nest

Learn Love's joyous repetend,
Yet the half-told tale is best
At the budding, with its end
Much too secret to be guessed,
And its fancies that attend
April's passion unexpressed.

Love and Nature communing
Gave us Arcady. Still ring-
Vales across and groves among—
Wistful memories, echoing

Pans far-off and fluty song

Poet! nothing harsher sing;

Be, like Love and Nature, young

In the tassel-time of spring.

Robert Underwood Johnson.

LOVE IN THE CALENDAR

THEN chinks in April's windy dome

WHEN Let through a day of June,

And foot and thought incline to roam,

And every sound's a tune;

When Nature fills a fuller cup,
And hides with green the gray,-
Then, lover, pluck your courage up
To try your fate in May.