FROM "KATRINA"

I DREW

DREW her head

Down to my cheek, and said: "My angel wife !
Whatever torment or disquietude

I may

have suffered, you have never been Its cause or its occasion. You are all

You have been all that womanhood can be
To manhood's want; and in your woman's love
And woman's pain, I have found every good
My life has known since first our lives were joined.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND

WEDDED

E took in both hands her lovely head,

HE

And looked in her eyes serene,

Many years married, but still as fond
As the foolish boy had been.

แ

And "O my dear,” said he, “and my love,
My dear sweet love and my wife,

If every kiss were a golden coin,
You would be rich for life.

"Nay, if of every kiss I have given
Each were but a single penny,

You would be rich with riches to spare

Sweet wife, think how many, how many!"

"Yea, truly," she said, "yet I'd not barter one
While I bind up my sheaves of caresses;
But there's many, oh, many a poor rich wife
Who would give all of her gold for the kisses."
JAMES V. BLAKE

LOVE'S THREAD OF GOLD.

N the night she told a story,

IN

In the night and all night through,
While the moon was in her glory,

And the branches dropped with dew.
'T was my life she told, and round it
Rose the years as from a deep;
In the world's great heart she found it,
Cradled like a child asleep.

In the night I saw her weaving
By the misty moonbeam cold,
All the weft her shuttle cleaving
With a sacred thread of gold.
Ah! she wept me tears of sorrow,
Lulling tears so mystic sweet;
Then she wove my last to-morrow,
And her web lay at my feet.

Of my life she made the story:
-so soon 't was told!

I must weep

But your name did lend it glory,

And your love its thread of gold!

JEAN INGELOW

FROM "LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL"

IN peace love tunes the shepherd's reed;

In war he mounts the warrior's steed;

In halls in gay attire is seen;

In hamlets dances on the green.

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;

For Love is heaven, and heaven is Love.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

I.

THERE the quiet-colored end of evening smiles
Miles and miles

On the solitary pastures where our sheep

Half asleep

Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop

II.

Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince

Ages since

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far

Peace or war.

Now the country does not even boast a tree,

As you see,

To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills

Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)

IV.

Where the doomed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all,

Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest, Twelve abreast.

V.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone

VI.

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold

Bought and sold.

Now,

the single little turret that remains
On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossoms winks Through the chinks

VIII.

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

IX.

And I know while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and the rills in undistinguished gray

Melt away

X.

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there

In the turret, whence the charioteers caught soul

For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breath

less, dumb

Till I come.