Next year-that's almost too hurried,
Laughingly said she;

For when once a girl is married,
She no more is free.

Sometime that is vague-long waiting Many a trouble brings;

"Twixt delaying and debating

Love might use its wings.

Never-word of evil omen,

And she sighed, heigh-ho

"Tis the hardest lot for women Love through life to go.

Next year-early in the May-time,
Was to be the day;

Looked she sweetly toward that gay time
Gleaming far away.

Never-fair with bridal flowers

Came that merry spring;

Ere those bright and radiant hours
She had taken wing.

This year, hearts are bound by sorrow; Next year some forget;

Sometime comes that golden morrow; Never-earth say yet.

ANONYMOUS

LIGHT AND LOVE.

165

LIGHT.

The night has a thousand eyes

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

FRANCIS W. BOURDILLON.

LIGHT AND LOVE.

If light should strike through every darkened place,

How many a deed of darkness and of shame
Would cease, arrested by its gentle grace,
And striving virtue rise, unscathed by blame!
The prisoner in his cell new hopes would frame,
The miner catch the metal's lurking trace,
The sage would grasp the ills that harm our race,
And unknown heroes leap to sudden fame.
If love but one short hour had perfect sway,
How many a rankling sore its touch would heal,
How many a misconception pass away,
And hearts long hardened learn at last to feel:
What sympathies would wake, what feuds decay
If perfect love might reign but one short day.

ANONYMOUS.

LOVE AND PITY.

Love came a beggar to her gate,
The night was drear, the hour was late,
And through the gloom she heard his moan
Where at the gate he stood alone.

His rounded form in rags was clad,
His weeping eyes were wan and sad;
But hid beneath his garb of woe
He bore his arrows and his bow.

She wept to see the beggar weep,

She bade him on her bosom sleep,

His wretched plight allayed her fears,

She kissed and bathed him with her tears.

The merry eyes began to glow,
The rosy hand essayed the bow,
The rough disguise was cast aside
And laughing Love for mercy cried.

Love came a beggar to her gate,
More wisely than with pomp and state;
For who hath woman's pity won
May count love's siege and battle done.

ANONYMOUS.

LOVE'S LOGIC.

167

LOVE'S LOGIC.

I. Her Respectable Papa.

"My dear, be sensible! Upon my word
This for a woman even-is absurd;
His income's not a hundred pounds, I know,
He's not worth loving."-"But I love him so."

II. Her Mother's.

"You silly child, he is well made and tall; But looks are far from being all in all.

His social standing's very low, his family's low.

He's not worth loving."-"And I love him so."

III. Her Eternal Friend's.

"Is that he picking up the fallen fan?
My dear! he's such an awkward, ugly man!
You must be certain, pet, to answer 'No.'
He's not worth loving."—"And I love him so."

IV. Her Brother's.

"By Jove! were I a girl-through horrid hap― I wouldn't have a milk-and-water chap.

The man has not a single spark of 'go,'

He's not worth loving."—"Yet I love him so."

V. Her Own.

"And were he everything to which I've listened;
Though he were ugly, awkward (and he isn't,)
Poor, low-born, and destitute of 'go'
He is worth loving, for I love him so."

"YES."

They stood above the world,
In a world apart;

And she drooped her happy eyes,
And stilled the throbbing pulses

Of her happy heart.

And the moonlight fell above her,

Her secret to discover;

And the moonbeams kissed her hair,

As though no human lover

Had laid his kisses there.

“Look up, brown eyes," he said,

"And answer mine;

Lift up those silken fringes

That hide a happy light

Almost divine;"

The jealous moonlight drifted
To the finger half-uplifted

Where shone the opal ring

Where the colors danced and shifted

On the pretty, changeful thing.