There is more need of love's supporting arm
Along life's slippery pathway, in its frost;
There is more need for love to wrap us warm
Against life's cold, when summer flowers are lost.
Let others share thy life's glad summer glow,
But let me walk beside thee in its snow.
You see it first near the dusty road,
Where the farmer stops with his heavy load,
At the foot of a weary hill;
There the mossy trough it overflows,
Then away, with a leap and a laugh, it goes
At its own sweet, wandering will.
It flows through an orchard gnarled and old,
Where in spring the dainty buds unfold
Their petals pink and white;
The apple-blossoms, so sweet and pure,
The streamlet's smiles and songs allure
To float off on its ripples bright.
It winds through the meadow, scarcely seen,
For o'er it the flowers and grasses lean
To salute its smiling face.
And thus, half hidden, it ripples along,
The whole way singing its summer song,
Making glad each arid place.
Just there, where the water, dark and cool,
Lingers a moment in yonder pool,
The dainty trout are at play;
And now and then one leaps in sight,
With sides aglow in the golden light
Of the long, sweet summer day.
Oh, back to their shelves those books consign,
And look to your rod and reel and line,
Make fast the feathered hook;
Then away from the town with its hum of life,
Where the air with worry and work is rife,
To the charms of the meadow brook.
A CLOUD came over a land of leaves
(Oh, hush, little leaves, lest it pass you by!)
How they had waited and watched for the rain,
Mountain and valley, and vineyard and plain,
With never a sign from the sky!
Day after day had the pitiless sun
Looked down with a lidless eye.
But now! On a sudden a whisper went
Through the topmost twigs of the poplar spire; Out of the east a light wind blew ;
(All the leaves trembled, and murmured, and drew Hope to the help of desire);
It stirred the faint pulse of the forest tree,
And breathed through the brake and the brier.
Slowly the cloud came, and then the wind died,
Dumb lay the land in its hot suspense;
The thrush on the elm-bough suddenly stopped,
The weather-warned swallow in mid-flying dropped,
The linnet ceased song in the fence;
Mute the cloud moved, till it hung overhead,
Heavy, big-bosomed, and dense.
Ah, the cool rush through the dry-tongued trees,
The patter and plash on the thirsty earth,
The eager bubbling of runnel and rill,
The lisping of leaves that have drunk their fill,
The freshness that follows the dearth!
New life for the woodland, the vineyard, the vale,
New life with the world's new birth!
Love, Sentiment, and Friendship.
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea,
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
Love, Sentiment, and Friendship.
AGES long since, upon the desert waste,
Within the hollow rock a gem was formed;
Liquid at first, it hardened age by age,
The rock slow crumbling into sand, the gem remained.
Nourished within my heart, intensest love
Of one fine nature, earnest, simple, rare-
Grew crystalline, and evermore shall live,
Outlasting that poor home wherein it grew.
EMMA POMEROY GREENOUGH.
SOME find Love late, some find him soon,
Some with the rose in May,
Some with the nightingale in June,
And some when skies are gray;
Love comes to some with smiling eyes,
And comes with tears to some;
For some Love sings, for some Love sighs,
For some Love's lips are dumb.
How will you come to me, fair Love?
Will you come late or soon?
With sad or smiling skies above,
By light of sun or moon?
Will you be sad, will you be sweet,
Sing, sigh, Love, or be dumb?
Will it be summer when we meet,
Or autumn ere you come?
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