Look! look! that livid flash! And instantly follows the rattling thunder,

As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,

On the Earth, which crouches in silence under;

And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; For a breath's space I see the blue wood again,

And ere the next heart-beat, the windhurled pile,

That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof;

Against the windows the storm comes dashing,

Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing,

The blue lightning flashes,
The rapid hail clashes,
The white waves are tumbling,
And, in one baffled roar,
Like the toothless sea mumbling
A rock-bristled shore,
The thunder is rumbling

And crashing and crumbling,
Will silence return nevermore?

Hush! Still as death,

The tempest holds his breath As from a sudden will;

The rain stops short, but from the

eaves

You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves,

All is so bodingly still;
Again, now, now, again
Plashes the rain in heavy gouts,

Gone, gone, so soon! No more my half-crazed fancy there,

Can shape a giant in the air, No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form ;The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.

LOVE.

TRUE Love is but a humble, low-born thing,

And hath its food served up in earthen

ware;

It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this workday world,

Baring its tender feet to every roughness, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty's law of plainness and content;

A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile

Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home;

Which, when our autumn cometh, as it

must,

And life in the chill wind shivers bare

and leafless,

Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth

In bleak November, and, with thankful heart,

Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit,

As full of sunshine to our aged eyes
As when it nursed the blossoms of our

spring.

Such is true Love, which steals into the heart

With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark,

And hath its will through blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night

Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes ; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults,

Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points,

But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness;

A love that shall be new and fresh each hour,

As is the golden mystery of sunset,
Or the sweet coming of the evening-star,
Alike, and yet most unlike, every day,
And seeming ever best and fairest now;
A love that doth not kneel for what it
seeks,

But faces Truth and Beauty as their

TO PERDITA, SINGING. THY voice is like a fountain, Leaping up in clear moonshine; Silver, silver, ever mounting, Ever sinking,

Without thinking,

To that brimful heart of thine.
Every sad and happy feeling,
Thou hast had in bygone years,
Through thy lips comes stealing, steal-
ing,
Clear and low;

All thy smiles and all thy tears
In thy voice awaken,

And sweetness, wove of joy and woe,

From their teaching it hath taken: Feeling and music move together, Like a swan and shadow ever Floating on a sky-blue river In a day of cloudless weather.

It hath caught a touch of sadness,

Yet it is not sad;

It hath tones of clearest gladness,
Yet it is not glad;

A dim, sweet twilight voice it is
Where to-day's accustomed blue
Is over-grayed with memories,

With starry feelings quivered through.

Thy voice is like a fountain Leaping up in sunshine bright,

And I never weary counting
Its clear droppings, lone and single,
Or when in one full gush they mingle,
Shooting in melodious light.

Thine is music such as yields
Feelings of old brooks and fields,
And, around this pent-up room,
Sheds a woodland, free perfume;

O, thus forever sing to me!
O, thus forever!

The green, bright grass of childhood bring to me,

Flowing like an emerald river,
And the bright blue skies above!
O, sing them back, as fresh as ever,
Into the bosom of my love,
The sunshine and the merriment,
The unsought, evergreen content,

Of that never cold time, The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went Through and through the old time!

Peace sits within thine eyes,

With white hands crossed in joyful rest,