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Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, Another still to quiet and retrieve.

II

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze.
-And suddenly my head is covered o'er

With those wings, white above the child who prays Now on that tomb-and I shall feel thee guarding Me, out of all the world ; for me, discarding

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

III

I would not look up thither past thy head

Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,

Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

IV

If this was ever granted, I would rest

My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, Pressing the brain which too much thought expands, Back to its proper size again, and smoothing Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

V

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.

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O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?

VI

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach

(Alfred, dear friend!)—that little child to pray, Holding the little hands up, each to each

Pressed gently, with his own head turned away Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach.

VII

We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there
And drink his beauty to our soul's content

-My angel with me too and since I care
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)

VIII

And since he did not work thus earnestly

At all times, and has else endured some wrongI took one thought his picture struck from me, And spread it out, translating it to song.

My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end? This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

EVELYN HOPE.

I

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think : The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save t'vo long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

II

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,—
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

III

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew-
And, just because I was thrice as old

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,

Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside?

IV

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love :
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

V

But the time will come, at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red— And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

VI

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!

VII

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seemed full as it could hold ;

There was place and to spare for the frank young

smile,

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young

gold.

So hush,-I will give you this leaf to keep :

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! There, that is our secret: go to sleep!

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

MEMORABILIA.

I

AH, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!

II

But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at-
My starting moves your laughter!

III

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:

IV

For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest

APPARENT FAILURE.

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."

I

Paris Newspaper.

No, for I 'll save it! Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince;

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