She begged him lay her bundled sticks
Close at the feet of the crucifix.

So down he set her brushwood freight
Against the wayside cross, and straight
She bowed her palsied head to greet
And kiss the sculptured Saviour's feet;
And then and there she told her grief,
In broken sentences and brief.

And now the memory o'er her came
Of days blown out, like a taper flame,
Never to be relighted, when,

From many a summer hill and glen,
She culled the loveliest blooms to shine
About the feet of this same shrine;
But now, where once her flowers were gay,
Naught but the barren brushwood lay!
She wept a little at the thought,
And prayers and tears a quiet brought,
Until anon, relieved of pain,
She rose to take her load again.

But lo! the bundle of dead wood

Had burst to blossom! and now stood
Dawning upon her marveling sight,

Filling the air with odorous light!

Then spake her traveler-friend: "Dear Soul,
Thy perfect faith hath made thee whole!
I am the Burthen-Bearer,-I

Will never pass the o'erladen by.

My feet are on the mountain steep;
They wind through valleys dark and deep;
They print the hot dust of the plain,
And walk the billows of the main.
Wherever is a load to bear,

My willing shoulder still is there!
Thy toil is done!" He took her hand,
And led her through a May-time land;
Where round her pathway seemed to wave
Each votive flower she ever gave

To make her favorite altar bright,
As if the angels, at their blight,
Had borne them to the fields of blue,
Where, planted 'mid eternal dew,
They bloom, as witnesses arrayed
Of one on earth who toiled and prayed.

Thomas Buchanan Read.

A PETITION TO TIME

Touch us gently, Time!

Let us glide adown thy stream

Gently, as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream!

Humble voyagers are we,

Husband, wife, and children three

(One is lost,- an angel fled

To the azure overhead!)

Touch us gently, Time!

We've not proud nor soaring wings:

Our ambition, our content,

Lies in simple things.

Humble voyagers are we,

O'er Life's dim unsounded sea,

Seeking only some calm clime;

Touch us gently, gentle Time!

Bryan Waller Procter.

ANNABEL LEE

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden lived, whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden, she lived with no other thought
Than to love, and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Annabel Lee,

With a love that the wingéd seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came,
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher,
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me.

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know)

In this kingdom by the sea,

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we,

Of many far wiser than we;

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And so, all the night-tide I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life, and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-Edgar Allan Poe.

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands, listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below;

From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore
In the fervor and passion of prayer;

From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,—
A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old mediæval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

WHEN THE KYE COME HAME

Come, all ye jolly shepherds,

That whistle through the glen!

I'll tell ye o' a secret

That courtiers dinna ken:

What is the greatest bliss

That the tongue o' man can name?

'Tis to woo a bonnie lassie

When the kye come hame.

When the kye come hame,

When the kye come hame,

'Tween the gloomin' an' the mirk,

When the kye come hame.

'Tis not beneath the burgonet,

Nor yet beneath the crown;

'Tis not on couch o' velvet,
Nor yet in bed o' down: