Ye vanished like the sailing ships
That ride far out at sea:

I murmur, as your farewell dies,
And your forms float from me.

Ah! ties are sundered in this hour;
No tide of fortune rare

Shall bring me hearts I owned before,
And my love's loss repair.

When voyagers make a foreign port,
And leave their precious prize,
Returning home, they bear for freight
A bartered merchandise.

Alas! when ye come back to me,
And come not as of yore,

But with your alien wealth and peace,
Can we be lovers more?

So Love is dead that has been quick so long!

Close, then, his eyes, and bear him to his rest, With eglantine and myrtle on his breast,

And leave him there, their pleasant scents among;

THE LAST GOOD-BYE 161

And chant a sweet and melancholy song
About the charms whereof he was possessed,
And how of all things he was loveliest,
And to compare with aught were him to wrong.

Leave him beneath the still and solemn stars,
That gather and look down from their far place
With their long calm our brief woes to deride,
Until the Sun the Morning's gate unbars

And mocks, in turn, our sorrows with his face; -
And yet, had Love been Love, he had not died.
Louise Chandler Moulton.

THE LAST GOOD-BYE

How shall we know it is the last good-bye?
The skies will not be darkened in that hour,
No sudden blight will fall on leaf or flower,
No single bird will hush its careless cry,
And you will hold my hands, and smile or sigh
Just as before. Perchance the sudden tears
In your dear eyes
will answer to my fears;
But there will come no voice of prophecy, -

No voice to whisper, "Now, and not again,

Space for last words, last kisses, and last prayer, For all the wild, unmitigated pain

Of those who, parting, clasp hands with despair." "Who knows?" We say, but doubt and fear remain. Would any choose to part thus unaware?

Louise Chandler Moulton.

BALLAD

IN the summer even,

While yet the dew was hoar, I went plucking purple pansies,

Till my love should come to shore. The fishing-lights their dances

Were keeping out at sea,

And come, I sang, my true love,

Come hasten home to me!

But the sea, it fell a-moaning,

And the white gulls rocked thereon;

And the young moon dropped from heaven,

And the lights hid one by one.

All silently their glances

Slipped down the cruel sea,

And wait! cried the night and wind and storm,

Wait, till I come to thee!

Harriet Prescott Spofford.

THE SANDPIPER

ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I, And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it,

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud black and swift across the sky;

IRELAND

Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,
One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry.
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;

He scans me with a fearless eye:
Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

163

Celia Thaxter.

IRELAND

A GREAT, Still Shape, alone,

She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand, And sees her children, one by one, depart: Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!) Wrapped fold on fold about her. Lo; She comforts her fierce heart,

As wailing some, and some gay-singing go,
With the far vision of that Greater Land
Deep in the Atlantic skies,
St. Brandan's Paradise!
Another Woman there,

Mighty and wondrous fair,

Stands on her shore-rock:

one uplifted hand

Holds a quick-piercing light

That keeps long sea-ways bright;

She beckons with the other, saying “Come,
O landless, shelterless,

Sharp-faced with hunger, worn with long distress:
Come hither, finding home!

Lo, my new fields of harvest, open, free,
By winds of blessing blown,

Whose golden corn-blades shake from sea to

sea

Fields without walls that all the people own!"

John James Piatt.

MEMORY

My mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour

'T was noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.