A NEW-YEAR'S BURDEN.

ALONG the grass sweet airs are blown
Our way this day in Spring.

Of all the songs that we have known
Now which one shall we sing?

Not that, my love, ah no !—

Not this, my love? why, so !—

Yet both were ours, but hours will come and go.

The grove is all a pale frail mist,

The new year sucks the sun.

Of all the kisses that we kissed

Now which shall be the one?

Not that, my love, ah no !—

Not this, my love?-heigh-ho

For all the sweets that all the winds can blow!

The branches cross above our eyes,

The skies are in a net:

And what's the thing beneath the skies

We two would most forget?

Not birth, my love, no, no,—

Not death, my love, no, no,

The love once ours, but ours long hours ago.

EVEN SO.

So it is, my dear.

All such things touch secret strings

For heavy hearts to hear.

So it is, my dear.

Very like indeed:

Sea and sky, afar, on high,

Sand and strewn seaweed,—

Very like indeed.

But the sea stands spread

As one wall with the flat skies,

Where the lean black craft like flies

Seem well-nigh stagnated,

Soon to drop off dead.

Seemed it so to us

When I was thine and thou wast mine,

And all these things were thus,

But all our world in us?

Could we be so now?

Not if all beneath heaven's pall

Lay dead but I and thou,
Could we be so now!

THE WOODSPURGE.

THE wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:

I had walked on at the wind's will,—
I sat now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was,—
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon ;
Among those few, out of the sun,

The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be

Wisdom or even memory:

One thing then learnt remains to me,—

The woodspurge has a cup of three.

THE HONEYSUCKLE.

I PLUCKED a honeysuckle where

The hedge on high is quick with thorn, And climbing for the prize, was torn, And fouled my feet in quag-water; And by the thorns and by the wind The blossom that I took was thinn'd,

And yet I found it sweet and fair.

Thence to a richer growth I came, Where, nursed in mellow intercourse, The honeysuckles sprang by scores,

Not harried like my single stem,

All virgin lamps of scent and dew. So from my hand that first I threw, Yet plucked not any more of them.

A YOUNG FIR-WOOD.

THESE little firs to-day are things
To clasp into a giant's cap,
Or fans to suit his lady's lap.

From many winters many springs

Shall cherish them in strength and sap,

Till they be marked upon the map, A wood for the wind's wanderings.

All seed is in the sower's hands:

And what at first was trained to spread Its shelter for some single head,— Yea, even such fellowship of wands,May hide the sunset, and the shade Of its great multitude be laid

Upon the earth and elder sands,