Then one by one they tremble down,

The tender leaves of Spring; and there
Lie round the bare trunks, sere and brown,
They that were once so fair.

Or, it may be, a great wind, rude and high,
Scatters and whirls them 'twixt earth and sky,
Till they wander far away.

Yet they sink at last to the bounteous earth,
And rest on her bosom who gave them birth;
And when the increasing day

Brings back the throb of Spring-time again,
Fresh leaves shall come to clothe the trees,
Larger and greener, for those that are gone.
For, ever by such dark ways as these,

Life springing from death, and joy from pain,
The eternal chariot-wheels roll grandly on;
And the great Husbandman, who prizes mould
Higher than solid gold,

Works out His hidden will; so you O child

In whom life's current courses strong and wild,

Learn, looking on these lives grown sere and brown, What end awaits our own.

Nor therefore sorrow; for though body and mind

May seem to perish, whether ripe decay
Wither our Saxon race, or some rude wind
Sent over seas, or venomous civil broil;

Yet not in vain has been the accomplished toil,
But man grows richer for it. It may be,
That all our ancient types shall suffer change,
And all our stately forests sway and fall;

And some new form shall issue, vast and strange,
In those great fields beyond the Western sea:
Who knows? Yet man is richer for it all.

And so in time, God willing, the great tree
Of which we are but leaves, shall wax and grow
In such brave sort, that it from sea to sea
May stretch its boughs, and send its roots so low
To the central earth, and lift its head so high
Above earth's vapours to the unclouded sky,
That increase and decay

Shall cease, and Life at last shine with a constant Day.

THE WEARY RIVER.

THERE is a ceaseless river,

Which flows down evermore

Into a wailing ocean,

A sea without a shore.

Broken by laughing ripple,

Foaming with angry swell,

Sweet music as of heaven,
Deep thunder as of hell.

Gay fleets float down upon it,
And sad wrecks, full of pain:
But all alike it hurries

To that unchanging main.

Sometimes 'tis foul and troubled,

And sometimes clear and pure ; But still the river flows, and still The dull sea doth endure.

And thus 'twill flow for ever,

Till time shall cease to be:

O weary, weary river,

O bitter, barren sea.

MARTYRS.

AH life has still its martyrs, great as those
Who bore the horrible despite of men,
The cruel rack to tear the willing limbs,

The ravening lions, or the fiery stake.

Think ye they knew a deeper pain, O friends,
Than theirs, who live with one great void unfilled,
Who, sickening through the waste of weary years,
Cherish a secret yearning, such as theirs
Who bear a hidden love, themselves unloved?
The maiden tricked to barren maidenhood;
The man who merits fame, yet finds it not;
The mother weeping for an only child,
Dead after years of longing; the good wife
Chained to the sensual churl; the gentle lady
Forced in the evening of her days to toil,
Deserted of her children, or to eat

The bitter bread of alms,—think ye that these
Suffer a lighter pain than those who went

Joyful to that brief agony? But an hour

And they should reign with Christ.

But those who bear

Through lingering years a life-long gnawing pain,

And bear without a murmur,-shall not God

Accept their gentler worship? Shall He give them A duller glory, or a lower crown?

TRUTH IN FALSEHOOD.

YOUR little hand in mine I rest:

The slender fingers, white and long,

Lie in my broad palm, rude and strong,
Like birdlings in their nest.

Yours, like yourself, so soft and white,

So delicately free from soil;

Mine sunbrowned, hard with moil and toil,

And seamed with scars of fight.

Dear love! sometimes your innocence

Strikes me with sudden chills of fear;

What if you saw before you, dear,

The secret gulfs of sense ?—