My Dearling!-thus, in days long fled,
In spite of creed and court and queen,
King Henry wrote to Anne Boleyn,
The dearest pet name ever said,

And dearly purchased, too, I ween!

Poor child! she played a losing game:
She won a heart, so Henry said,
But ah, the price she gave instead!
Men's hearts, at best, are but a name:
She paid for Henry's with her head!

You count men's hearts as something worth?

Not I: were I a maid unwed,

I'd rather have my own fair head Than all the lovers on the earth,

Than all the hearts that ever bled!

"My Dearling!" with a love most true,
Having no fear of creed or queen,
I breathe that name my prayers between;
But it shall never bring to you
The hapless fate of Anne Boleyn !

THE LAST LANDLORD

You who dread the cares and labors
Of the tenant's annual quest,
You who long for peace and rest,
And the quietest of neighbors,
You may find them, if you will,
In the city on the hill.

One indulgent landlord leases
All the pleasant dwellings there;
He has tenants everywhere,
Every day the throng increases;
None may tell their number, yet
He has mansions still to let.

Never presses he for payment; Gentlest of all landlords he; And his numerous tenantry Never lack for food or raiment. Sculptured portal, grassy roof, All alike are trouble-proof.

Of the quiet town's frequenters,
Never one is ill at ease;

There are neither locks nor keys, Yet no robber breaks or enters; Not a dweller bolts his door, Fearing for his treasure-store.

Never sound of strife or clamor Troubles those who dwell therein; Never toil's distracting din, Stroke of axe, nor blow of hammer; Crimson clover sheds its sweets Even in the widest streets.

Never tenant old or younger
Suffers illness or decline;
There no suffering children pine;
There comes never want nor hunger;
Woe and need no longer reign;
Poverty forgets its pain.

Turmoil and unrest and hurry

Stay forevermore outside; By the hearts which there abide Wrong, privation, doubt, and worry Are forgotten quite, or seem Only like a long-past dream.

BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again just for to-night! Mother, come back from the echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;

Rock me to sleep, mother, -rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,Take them, and give me my childhood again!

I have grown weary of dust and decay, Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away; Weary of sowing for others to reap; Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!

-

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you! Many a summer the grass has grown green, Blossomed and faded, our faces between: Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,

--

Whose feet the immaculate valleys long have trod.

For him, the recompense; for us, the rod; And we to whom regretfulness belongs Crown our dead singer with his own sweet

songs,

And roof his grave with love's remembering sod.

DOWN THE BAYOU

THE Cypress swamp around me wraps its spell,

With hushing sounds in moss-hung branches there,

Like congregations rustling down to prayer,
While Solitude, like some unsounded bell,
Hangs full of secrets that it cannot tell,
And leafy litanies on the humid air
Intone themselves, and on the tree-trunks
bare

The scarlet lichen writes her rubrics well. The cypress-knees take on them marvellous shapes

Of pygmy nuns, gnomes, goblins, witches, fays,

The vigorous vine the withered gum-tree drapes,

Across the oozy ground the rabbit plays, The moccasin to jungle depths escapes, And through the gloom the wild deer shyly gaze.

RESERVE

THE sea tells something, but it tells not all That rests within its bosom broad and deep; The psalming winds that o'er the ocean sweep

From compass point to compass point may call,

Nor half their music unto earth let fall;
In far, ethereal spheres night knows to keep
Fair stars whose rays to mortals never creep,
And day uncounted secrets holds in thrall.
He that is strong is stronger if he wear
Something of self beyond all human clasp, —
An inner self, behind unlifted folds

Of life, which men can touch not nor lay bare:

Thus great in what he gives the world to grasp,

Is greater still in that which he withholds.