A little while I yearn to hold thee fast,

Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart;

(O pitying Christ! those woeful words, "We part!") So ere the darkness fall, the light be past, A little while I fain would hold thee fast.

A little while, when light and twilight meet,
Behind, our broken years; before, the deep
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep,
A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet,
A little while, when night and twilight meet.

A little while I fain would linger here;

Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars
Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair:
A little while I still would linger here.

THE MOCKING BIRD

(At Night)

A golden pallor of voluptuous light

Filled the warm southern night:

5

10

15

The moon, clear orbed, above the sylvan scene
Moved like a stately queen.

20

So rife with conscious beauty all the while,
What could she do but smile

At her own perfect loveliness below,
Glassed in the tranquil flow

Of crystal fountains and unruffled streams?
Half lost in waking dreams,

25

As down the loneliest forest dell I strayed,

Lo! from a neighboring glade,

Flashed through the drifts of moonshine, swiftly came

A fairy shape of flame.

5 It rose in dazzling spirals overhead,

Whence to wild sweetness wed,

Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill;
The very leaves grew still

On the charmed trees to hearken; while for me,

10 Heart-trilled to ecstasy,

I followed

followed the bright shape that flew,

Still circling up the blue,

Till, as a fountain that has reached its height
Falls back in sprays of light

15 Slowly dissolved, so that enrapturing lay

Divinely melts away

Through tremulous spaces to a music-mist,
Soon by the fitful breeze

How gently kissed

20 Into remote and tender silences.

FATE OR GOD?

Beyond the record of all eldest things,
Beyond the rule and region of past time,

From out Antiquity's hoary-headed rime,
25 Looms the dread phantom of a King of kings:
Round his vast brow the glittering circlet clings
Of a thrice-royal crown; beneath him climb,
O'er Atlantean limbs and breast sublime,
The sombre splendors of mysterious wings;

Deep calms of measureless power, in awful state,
Gird and uphold him; a miraculous rod, A
To heal or smite, arms his infallible hands;
Known in all ages, worshipped in all lands,
Doubt names this half-embodied mystery-Fate,
While Faith, with lowliest reverence, whispers - God!

An acceptury

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5

of the situilen descend

JOHN ESTEN COOKE

THE BAND IN THE PINES

Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease!
Cease with your splendid call;

The living are brave and noble,

But the dead are noblest of all!

They throng to the martial summons,

To the loud triumphant strain,

And the dear bright eyes of long-dead friends
Come to the heart again!

They come with the ringing bugle,

And the deep drum's mellow roar;

Till the soul is faint with longing
For the hands we clasp no more!

Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease!

Or the heart will melt with tears,
For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips,
And the voices of old years.

MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND

THE CREED

I believe if I should die,

And you should kiss my eyelids, when I lie
Cold dead and dumb to all the world contains,
The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
And from its exile in the isles of death
Life would come gladly back along my veins.

I believe if I were dead

And you upon my lifeless heart should tread
Not knowing what the poor clod chanced to be,
It would find sudden pulse beneath the touch
Of thee it ever loved in life so much,

And throb again - warm, tender, true to thee.

I believe if on my grave

Hidden in woody depths, or by the wave,
Your eyes should drop some warm tears of regret,
From every salty seed of your dear grief
Some fair sweet blossom would leap into leaf
To prove death could not make my love forget

I believe if I should fade

Into those mystic realms where light is made
And you should long once more my face to see,
I would come forth upon the hills of night
And gather stars like faggots till thy sight,
Led by their beacon blaze, fell full on me.

5

I believe my faith in thee

Strong as my life, so nobly placed to be

I would as soon expect to see the sun

Fall like a dead king from his height sublime, -
His glory stricken from the throne of time, -
As thee unworth the worship thou hast won.

I believe who hath not loved

With half the glory of his life unproved
Like one who with the grape within his grasp
Drops it with all its crimson juice unpressed
And all its luscious sweetness left unguessed
Out of his careless and unheeding grasp.

I believe love, pure and true,

Is to the soul a sweet immortal dew
Which gems life petals in its hours of dusk.
The waiting angels see, and recognize

The rich crown jewel- love

When life falls from us like a withered husk.

10

JOHN HAY

JIM BLUDSO OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Because he don't live, you see;

Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.