ALL'S over, then does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?

Hark, 't is the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves !

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly;

I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully;

-You know the red turns grey.

N 2

To-morrow we meet the same, then, dearest :
May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,-well, friends the merest
Keep much that I'll resign.

For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,-
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stays in my soul for ever!

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

Robert Browning.

CCL.

LOVE'S LAST WORDS.

GONE BY AND DONE.

COME, let us leave; have no smooth words, but go;
Better break off at once than palter so.

Have out the ending; cloud in idle tears.
Freedom outweighs regret of altered years
Gone by and done.

Review the lovely dream we thought to reach,
The blind desire that held us each to each;
Count out in calmness all the loss and gain;
And say, when all is done, could we remain
Heart-bound as one?

Peace is a nobler thing than loving thee;
More than love's sweet is to be trouble-free.
We shall not better our old loving ways,
And the chain galled us in those half-sweet days,
Though silken-fine.

Content thee and depart. Can I control
The lapsing month or bind the season's roll?
Can I command that change shall flee away?
Will Fate, who rules the gods, hear what I say?
Is all power mine?

You give me your old smiling as I speak;
You whisper, I was vain if you were weak.
Ah, child! refrain to portion each his blame;
Is it delight to weigh how each fault came?
Ah, who can tell?

Still, though I be most hungry to be gone,
Weary of all things, asking peace alone;
Yet, if you smile me that old smile again,
My soul will grow a weakling, and refrain
To say farewell.

John Leicester Warren.

CCLI.

LOVE'S WINTRY DAY.

ALAS, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long;
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.

Alas, how hardly things go right!

'T is hard to watch in a summer night;

For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay,
And the summer night is a winter day.

George MacDonald.

CCLII.

LOVE DEPARTED.

My heart is turned to bitter north
That was so soft a south before;
My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o'er;

My gay green leaves are yellow-black,
Upon the dark autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.

A roofless ruin lies my home,

For winds to blow and rains to pour ; One frosty night befell, and lo,

I find my summer days are o'er : The heart bereaved, of why and how Unknowing, knows that yet before It had what e'en to Memory now

Returns no more, no more.

Arthur Hugh Clough.

CCLIII.

LOVE BEWAILING.

O DOVE, that dost bewail thy love

As I do mine,

Would that my woe could find the facile flow Thou hast for thine!

In every wood I hear thy voice

In loud lament,

While I am fain to send the sounds of pain
To banishment.

Yet I divine thy heart and mine

Know the same grief;

But thine has utterance, while silent tears
Are my relief.

Let us divide our burdens, then,

Mourn thou for me,

And I, who am too proud to moan aloud,
Will weep for thee !

Alice Horton.

CCLIV.

LOVE SACRIFICED.

WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at

hame,

And a' the warld to rest are gane,

The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;

But saving a croun he had naething else beside :

To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea; And the croun and the pund were baith for me,

He hadna been awa' a week but only twa,

When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown awa';

My mother she fell sick, and my Jamie at the sea-
And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

My father couldna work, and my mother couldna

spin;

I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna win ; Auld Rob maintained them baith, and with tears in

his e'e

Said, Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me!

My heart it said nay; I looked for Jamie back;

But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;

His ship it was a wrack-why didna Jamie dee?

Or why do I live to cry, Wae's me!

My father urgit sair: my mother didna speak;

But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break :

They gi'ed him my hand, but my heart was at the

sea;

Sae auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.