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LUELLA CLARK.

IF YOU LOVE ME.

IF you love me, tell me not;
Let me read it in your thought;
Let me feel it in the way
That you say me yea and nay;

Let me see it in your eye
When you greet or pass me by;
Let me hear it in the tone
Meant for me and me alone.

If you love me, there will be
Something only I shall see;
Meet or miss me, stay or go,
If you love me, I shall know.
Something in your tone will tell,
"Dear, I love you, love you well."

Something in your eyes will shine Fairer that they look in mine.

In your mien some touch of grace, Some swift smile upon your face While you speak not, will betray What your lips could scarcely say.

In your speech some silver word,
Tuning into sweet accord
All your bluntness will reveal,
Unaware, the love you feel.

If you love me, then, I pray, Tell me not, but, day by day, Let love silent on me rise, Like the sun in summer skies.

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NANTASKET.

FAIR is thy face, Nantasket, And fair thy curving shores,― The peering spires of villages, The boatman's dipping oars, The lonely ledge of Minot,

Beside the brook the gentian Closes its fringèd eyes, And waits the later glory

Of October's yellow skies.

Within the sea-washed meadow The wild grape climbs the wall,

Where the watchman tends his And from the o'er-ripe chestnuts

light,

And sets his perilous beacon,
A star in the stormiest night.

Over thy vast sea highway,

The great ships slide from sight, And flocks of wingèd phantoms Flit by, like birds in flight. Over the toppling sea-wall

The home-bound dories float, And I watch the patient fisherman Bend in his anchored boat.

I am alone with Nature;
With the glad September day.
The leaning hills above me
With golden-rod are gay,
Across the fields of ether
Flit butterflies at play,
And cones of garnet sumach
Glow down the country way.

The autumn dandelion

Along the roadside burns; Down from the lichened boulders Quiver the plumèd ferns; The cream-white silk of the milkweed Floats from its sea-green pod; Out from the mossy rock-seams Flashes the golden-rod.

The woodbine's scarlet banners

Flaunt from their towers of stone;
The wan, wild morning-glory
Dies by the road alone;

By the hill-path to the seaside
Wave myriad azure bells;

And over the grassy ramparts lean
The milky immortelles.

Hosts of gold-hearted daisies

Nod by the wayside bars;

The tangled thicket of green is set With the aster's purple stars;

The brown burs softly fall. I see the tall reeds shiver Beside the salt sea marge;

I see the sea-bird glimmer,
Far out on airy barge.

I hear in the groves of Hingham
The friendly caw of the crow,
Till I sit again in Wachusett's woods,
In August's sumptuous glow.
The tiny boom of the beetle

Strikes the shining rocks below;
The gauzy oar of the dragon-fly
Is beating to and fro.

As the lovely ghost of the thistle
Goes sailing softly by;
Glad in its second summer
Hums the awakened fly;
The cumulate cry of the cricket
Pierces the amber noon;

In from the vast sea-spaces comes
The clear call of the loon;
Over and through it all I hear
Ocean's pervasive rune.

| Against the warm sea-beaches
Rush the wavelets' eager lips;
Away o'er the sapphire reaches
Move on the stately ships.
Peace floats on all their pennons,
Sailing silently the main,
As if never human anguish,

As if never human pain,

Sought the healing draught of Lethe, Beyond the gleaming plain.

Fair is the earth behind me,
Vast is the sea before,
Away through the misty dimness
Glimmers a further shore.

It is no realm enchanted,

It cannot be more fair

Than this nook of Nature's Kingdom, With its spell of space and air.

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Or vestal, say, of saintliest clay,
For once by balmiest airs betrayed
Unto emotions too, too sweet
To be unlingeringly gainsaid.

Unowning then, confusing soon With dreamier dreams that o'er the glass

Of shyly ripening woman-sense
Reflected, scarce reflected, pass·
A wife may be, a mother, she

In Hymen's shrine recalls not now She first-in hour, ah, not profane! With me to Hymen learnt to bow.

Ah no!-yet owned we, fused in one, The power which, e'en in stones and earths

By blind elections felt, in forms

Organic breeds to myriad births; By lichen small on granite wall Approved, its faintest, feeblest stir Slow-spreading, strengthening long, at last

Vibrated full in me and her.

In me and her

sensation strange! The lily grew to pendent head; To vernal airs the mossy bank Its sheeny primrose spangles spread; In roof o'er roof of shade sun-proof Did cedar strong itself outclimb; And altitude of aloe proud

Aspire in floral crown sublime;

Flashed flickering forth fantastic flies;

Big bees their burly bodies swung; Rooks roused with civic din the elms; And lark its wild reveillé rung; In Libyan dell the light gazelle,

The leopard lithe in Indian glade, And dolphin, brightening tropic seas, In us were living, leapt and played.

Their shells did slow crustacea build; Their gilded skins did snakes re

new;

While mightier spines for loftier kind Their types in amplest limbs out

grew;

Yea, close comprest in human breast, What moss, and tree, and livelier

thing

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