Friendship.

But oft the plant whose leaves unsere
Refresh the desert, hardly brooks
The common-people atmosphere

Of daily thoughts, and words, and looks;
It trembles at the brushing wings

Of many a careless fashion-fly,

And strange suspicions aim their stings
To taint it, as they wander by.

MILNES.

TRUE LOVE.

O, THAT I thought it could be in a woman,
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you

Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnow'd purity in love;
How were I then uplifted! but alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.

SHAKSPEARE.

45

THE WIFE'S WELCOME.

HE hearth is swept, the fire is bright,
The kettle sings for tea;

The cloth is spread, the lamp's alight, The hot cakes smoke in napkins white, And now I wait for thee!

Come home, love, home! thy task is done;
The clocks tick listeningly;

The blinds are shut, the curtains down,
The arm-chair to the fireside drawn,

Our boy upon my knee.

Thy task is done, we miss thee here;
Where'er thy footsteps roam,
No hand will spread such kindly cheer,
No beating heart, no listening ear

Like those which wait at home!

The Wife's Welcome.

Aha! along the crisp walks, fast

That well-known step doth come; The bolt is drawn-the gate is past, The babe is wild with joy at last,A thousand welcomes home!

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MRS. AREY.

LOVE.

IF through love

One gentler, nobler impulse thou dost gain,
Dost rightly its deep self-oblivion prove;
Or if its weariness doth thee constrain
To turn for sympathy, where cold disdain
Will ne'er encounter thee, to Heaven above,
How canst thou yet with piteous voice complain,
Blind mortal! that thy love hath been in vain?
Vain-worse than vain, is many an impure
And idle love, that doth its end attain
With scarce an effort. But of this be sure,
True, holy love can never be in vain.

MARY MAYNARD.

A TOILETTE.

From Andromeda.

JOVING and gentle she spoke, but the maid stood in awe, as the goddess

Plaited with soft swift finger her tresses and decked her in jewels

Armlet and anklet and earbell; and over her shoulders a

necklace,

Heavy, enamelled, the flower of the gold and the brass of the mountain,

Trembling with joy she gazed, so well Hephaistos had made it,

Deep in the forges of Etna, while Charis, his lady, beside

him

Mingled her grace in his craft, as he wrought for his sister Athené.

Then on the brows of the maiden a veil bound PallasAthené ;

Ample it fell to her feet, deep-fringed, a wonder of weaving.

Ages and ages agone it was wrought on the heights of Olympus,

Wrought in the gold-strung loom, by the finger of cunning Athené.

A Toilette.

49

In it she wove all creatures that teem in the womb of

the ocean;

Nereid, syren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy fishes Glittering round, many-hued, on the flame-red folds of the mantle.

In it she wove, too, a town where grey-haired kings sat in judgment;

Sceptre in hand, in the market they sat, doing right by the people,

Wise, while above watched Justice, and near, far-seeing

Apollo.

Round it she wove for a fringe all herbs of the earth and

the water,

Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, and roses and lilies,

Coral, and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean.

Now from Olympus she bore it, a dower to the bride of a hero.

Over the limbs of the damsel she wrapt it: the maid still trembled,

Shading her face with her hands, for the eyes of the goddess were awful.

KINGSLEY.

E