"No matter.

The sorrow of

I would not care;

Were it not better that this should be?

many the many bear,

Mine is too heavy for me.

And I want that rose, you see!"

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1870.

IN DOUBT.

THROUGH dream and dusk a frightened whisper said "Lay down the world: the one you love is dead." In the near waters, without any cry

I sank, therefore-glad, oh so glad, to die! Therefore, oh, next to God, I pray you keep

Yourself as your own friend, the tried, the true. Sit your own watch-others will surely sleep. Weep your own tears. Ask none to die with you.

BROKEN PROMISE.

AFTER strange stars, inscrutable, on high;
After strange seas beneath his floating feet;
After the glare in many a brooding eye,—
I wonder if the cry of "Land" was sweet?

Or did the Atlantic gold, the Atlantic palm,
The Atlantic bird and flower, seem poor, at best,
To the grey Admiral under sun and calm,
After the passionate doubt and faith of quest?

THE WATCH OF A SWAN.

I READ somewhere that a swan, snow-white,
In the sun all day, in the moon all night,
Alone by a little grave would sit

Waiting, and watching it,

Up out of the lake her mate would rise,
And call her down with his piteous cries
Into the waters still and dim ;-

With cries she would answer him.

Hardly a shadow would she let pass
Over the baby's cover of grass;
Only the wind might dare to stir

The lily that watched with her.

Do I think that the swan was an angel? Oh,
I think it was only a swan, you know,
That for some sweet reason, winged and wild,
Had the love of a bird for a child.

THE WITCH IN THE GLASS.

"My mother says I must not pass
Too near that glass;

She is afraid that I will see

A little witch that looks like me,
With a red, red mouth to whisper low
The very thing I should not know!"

"Alack for all your mother's care!
A bird of the air,

A wistful wind, or (I suppose
Sent by some hapless boy) a rose,
With breath too sweet, will whisper low
The very thing you should not know!"

COMFORT THROUGH A WINDOW.

(CHILD WITHIN TO TRAMP WITHOUT.)

It's not so nice here as it looks,
With china that keeps breaking so,
And five of Mr Tennyson's books
Too fine to look in-is it, though

If you just had to sit here (Well!)
In satin chairs too blue to touch,
And look at flowers too sweet to smell,
In vases-would you like it much?

If you see any flowers, they grow,

And you can find them in the sun.
These are the ones we buy, you know,
In winter time-when there are none !

Then you can sit on rocks, you see,
And walk about in water, too-
Because you have no shoes! Dear me !
How many things they let you do!

Then you can sleep out in the shade
All day, I guess, and all night too,
Because you know, you're not afraid
Of other fellows just like you!

You have no house like this, you know,
(Where mamma's cross, and ladies call)—
You have the world to live in, though,
And that's the prettiest place of all!

MAKING PEACE.

AFTER this feud of yours and mine
The sun will shine;

After we both forget, forget,
The sun will set.

I pray you think how warm and sweet
The heart can beat;

I pray you think how soon the rose
From grave-dust grows.

SWEET World, if you will hear me now:
I may not own a sounding Lyre
And wear my name upon my brow
Like some great jewel quick with fire.

But let me, singing, sit apart,

In tender quiet with a few,
And keep my fame upon my heart,
A little blush-rose wet with dew.

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.

Born in Milton, Pennsylvania; went to the South early; has identified herself with the South. Author of Beechenbrook; Old Songs and New (1870); Cartoons (1870); and For Love's Sake (1887); Colonial Ballads (1887). The poems quoted are given with the kind permission of Roberts Brothers for "A Blemished Offering," and Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for the others.]

A BLEMISHED OFFERING.

"I WOULD my gift were worthier!" sighed the Greek, As on he goaded to the temple-door

His spotted bullock. "Ever of our store Doth Zeus require the best; and fat and sleek The ox I vowed to him-(no brindled streak,

No fleck of dun,) when through the breaker's roar He bore me safe, that day, to Naxos' shore; And now, my gratitude,—how seeming-weak!

But here be chalk-pits! What if I should white
The blotches, hiding all unfitness so?

The victim in the people's eyes would show
Better therefore;-the sacrificial rite

Be quicker granted at thus fair a sight,
And the great Zeus himself might never know."

A BELLE OF PRAENESTE.

CASTELLANI COLLECTION OF ANTIQUES.

I.

HERE is her toilet-case-a crust
O'er it of greenest classic rust;

Still with the delicate twist and twine
Visible of the rare design;

Even the very casket where,

Nearly three thousand years ago, One who was young and fresh and fairFair as the fairest that you knowHoarded her maiden treasures.

See,

Here is the mirror that used to be

Able to flash with silvery grace

Back the divinity of her face;
This is the comb-its carvings yet
Perfect that knotted her braids of jet;
There's the cicada for her brow;

Arrows whose points are blunted now; Coils for her throat; an unguent pot (Proof of some moulder's wondrous skill), Ivory tablet with a blot

Showing a tint of the carmine still.

II.

This was her necklace: even as I

Toy with its links of threaded gold, She may have toyed, with pensive sigh, Drooping them through her fingers, while Hearing, perhaps, with blushing smile, Under the limes, some lover bold Telling a tale that's never old.

Here is the fibula that lay

Over her heart for many a day,

Throbbing what time that lover won

Wreaths when Etruscan games were done;