Before the Winter's sun his fleet

Brief journey made that day,

All soiled and blackened in the street, The little snowflake lay.

GOD'S MOTTO.

HIS is the season of wooing and mating,

TH

The heart of Nature calls out for its own, And God have pity on those who are waiting

The fair unfolding of Spring, alone. For the fowls fly north in pairs together,

And two by two are the leaves unfurled,
And the whole intent of the wind and weather
Is to waken love, in the thought of the world.

Up through the soil where the grass is springing,
To flaunt green flags in the golden light,
Each little sprout its mate is bringing

(Oh, one little sprout were a lonely sight). We wake at dawn with the silvery patter

Of bird-notes falling like showers of rain, And need but listen to prove their chatter The amorous echo of love's sweet pain.

In the buzz of the bee and the strong steed's neighing,

In the bursting bud and the heart's unrest,

The voice of Nature again is saying,

In God's own motto, that love is best.
For this is the season of wooing and mating,
The heart of Nature calls out for its own;
And oh, the sorrow of souls that are waiting
The soft unfolding of Spring, alone.

HOW LIKE THE SEA.

OW like the sea, the myriad-minded sea,

Is this large love of ours: so vast, so deep,

So full of mysteries! it, too, can keep

Its secrets, like the ocean; and is free,

Free, as the boundless main. Now it may be
Calm like the brow of some sweet child asleep;
Again its seething billows surge and leap
And break in fulness of their ecstasy.

Each wave so like the wave which came before,
Yet never two the same! Imperative
And then persuasive as the cooing dove,
Encroaching ever on the yielding shore—
Ready to take; yet readier still to give-
How like the myriad-minded sea, is love.

TRUE CHARITY.

GAVE a beggar from my little store

Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore And came again, and yet again, still cold

And hungry, as before.

I gave a thought, and through that thought of mine He found himself, the man, supreme, divine!

Fed, clothed and crowned with blessings manifold.

And now he begs no more,

WHEN THE REGIMENT CAME BACK.

AL

LL the uniforms were blue, all the swords were bright and new,

When the regiment went marching down the

street,

All the men were hale and strong as they proudly moved along,

Through the cheers that drowned the music of their feet.

Oh, the music of the feet keeping time to drums that beat,

Oh, the splendor and the glitter of the sight, As with swords and rifles new and in uniforms of

blue,

The regiment went marching to the fight.

When the regiment came back all the guns and swords were black

And the uniforms had faded out to gray,

And the faces of the men who marched through that street again

Seemed like faces of the dead who lose their way. For the dead who lose their way can not look more wan and gray.

Oh, the sorrow and the pity of the sight,

Oh, the weary lagging feet out of step with drums that beat,

As the regiment comes marching from the fight.