Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden

Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions

Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian. Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,

Hung the heart of the maiden.

moonlight

The calm and the magical

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings, As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of the oak-trees,

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless

prairie.

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers. Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens, Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship,

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them "Upharsin."

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fireflies,

Wandered alone, and she cried, "O Gabriel! O, my beloved! Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee? Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?

Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie! Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!

Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy

slumbers.

When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?"

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whip-poor-will

sounded,

Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighboring thickets,

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence.

"Patience!" whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness;

And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, "To`morrow!"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

BRUSHWOOD.

On a weary slope of Apennine,
At sober dusk of day's decline,
Out of the solemn solitude

Of Vallombrosa's antique wood,
A withered woman, tanned and bent,
Bearing her bundled brushwood went,
Poising it on her palsied head,

As if in penance for prayers unsaid.

Her dull cheeks channeled were with tears,
Shed in the storms of eighty years;
Her wild hair fell in gusty flow,
White as the foamy brook below:
Still toiled she with her load alone,
With feeble feet, but steadfast will,
To gain her little home, that shone
Like a dreary lantern on the hill.

How far, how very far it seemed,
To where that starry taper gleamed,
Placed by her grandchild on the sill
Of the cottage window on the hill!
Many a parent heart before,

Laden till it could bear no more,

Has seen a heavenward light that smiled,
And knew it placed there by a child;-
A long-gone child, whose anxious face
Gazed toward them down the deeps of space,
Longing for the loved to come

To the quiet of that home.

Steeper and rougher grew the road,
Harder and heavier grew the load;
Her heart beat like a weight of stone
Against her breast. A sigh and moan
Mingled with prayer escaped her lips
Of sorrow, o'er sorrowing night's eclipse.
"Of all who pass me by," she said,
"There is never one to lend me aid;
Could I but gain yon wayside shrine,
There would I rest this load of mine,
And tell my sacred rosary through,
And try what patient prayer would do."

Again she heard the toiling tread
Of one who climbed that way,—and said,
"I will be bold, though I should see
A monk or priest, or it should be
The awful abbot, at whose nod
The frighted people toil and plod:
I'll ask his aid to yonder place,
Where I may breathe a little space,
And so regain my home." He came,
And halting by the ancient dame,
Heard her brief story and request,
Which moved the pity in his breast;
And so he straightway took her load,
Toiling beside her up the road,
Until, with heart that overflowed,
She begged him lay her bundled sticks
Close at the feet of the crucifix.

So down he set her brushwood freight
Against the wayside cross, and straight
She bowed her palsied head to greet
And kiss the sculptured Saviour's feet;
And then and there she told her grief,
In broken sentences and brief.
And now the memory o'er her came
Of days blown out, like a taper flame,
Never to be relighted, when,

From many a summer hill and glen,

She culled the loveliest blooms to shine

About the feet of this same shrine;

But now, where once her flowers were gay,
Naught but the barren brushwood lay!
She wept a little at the thought,

And prayers and tears a quiet brought,
Until anon, relieved of pain,

She rose to take her load again.
But lo! the bundle of dead wood
Had burst to blossom! and now stood
Dawning upon her marveling sight,
Filling the air with odorous light!

Then spake her traveler-friend: "Dear Soul,
Thy perfect faith hath made thee whole!
I am the Burthen-Bearer,—I

Will never pass the o'erladen by.

My feet are on the mountain steep;
They wind through valleys dark and deep;
They print the hot dust of the plain,
And walk the billows of the main.
Wherever is a load to bear,

My willing shoulder still is there!
Thy toil is done!" He took her hand,
And led her through a May-time land;
Where round her pathway seemed to wave
Each votive flower she ever gave
To make her favorite altar bright,
As if the angels, at their blight,
Had borne them to the fields of blue,
Where, planted 'mid eternal dew,
They bloom, as witnesses arrayed

Of one on earth who toiled and prayed.

Thomas Buchanan Read.

A PETITION TO TIME.

Touch us gently, Time!

Let us glide adown thy stream Gently, as we sometimes glide Through a quiet dream!

Humble voyagers are we,

Husband, wife, and children three-
(One is lost, an angel fled
To the azure overhead!)

Touch us gently, Time!

We 've not proud nor soaring wings:
Our ambition, our content,

Lies in simple things.

Humble voyagers are we,

O'er Life's dim unsounded sea,

Seeking only some calm clime;

'Touch us gently, gentle Time!

Bryan Waller Procter.

ANNABEL LEE.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden lived, whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden, she lived with no other thought Than to love, and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee,

With a love that the wingéd seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her high born kinsmen came,
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher,
In this kingdom by the sea.