26

Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come-at last it will
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth-in the years long still-
That body and soul so gay?

Why your hair was amber I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium's red— And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gain'd me the gains of various men,

Ransack'd the ages, spoil'd the climes;
Yet one thing-one-in my soul's full scope,
Either I miss'd or itself miss'd me-
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;

My heart seem'd full as it could hold—

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile

And the red young mouth and the hair's young

gold.

So hush! I will give you this leaf to keep;

See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand.

There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

ROBERT BROWNING.

CHANGES.

WHOM first we love, you know, we seldom wed,
Time rules us all. And life, indeed, is not
The thing we planned it out ere hope was dead.
And then, we women cannot choose our lot.

Much must be borne which it is hard to bear;
Much given away which it were sweet to keep.
God help us all! who need, indeed, His care,
And yet, I know the Shepherd loves His sheep.

My little boy begins to babble now

Upon my knee his earliest infant prayer.
He has his father's eager eyes, I know;
And, they say, too, his mother's sunny hair.

But when he sleeps and smiles upon my knee,
And I can feel his light breath come and go,
I think of one (Heaven help and pity me !)

Who loved me, and whom I loved, long ago;

Who might have been . . . ah, what I dare not think!

We are all changed. God judges for us best.
God help us do our duty, and not shrink,
And trust in Heaven humbly for the rest.

But blame us women not, if some appear

Too cold at times; and some too gay and light. Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are hard to bear. Who knows the past? and who can judge us right?

Ah, were we judged by what we might have been, And not by what we are—too apt to fall!

My little child-he sleeps and smiles between These thoughts and me. In Heaven we shall know all !

ROBERT BULWER LYTTON.

WHAT IS HE BUZZING IN MY EARS?

WHAT is he buzzing in my ears?

Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?

Ah, reverend sir, not I.

What I viewed there once, what I view again,
Where the physic bottles stand

On the table's edge, is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry

O'er the garden-wall. Is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?

To mine, it serves for the old June weather,
Blue above lane and wall;

And that farthest bottle, labelled "Ether,"
Is the house o'ertopping all.

At a terrace somewhat near its stopper,
There watched for me, one June,

A girl-I know, sir, it's improper;

My poor mind's out of tune.

Only there was a way—you crept
Close by the side, to dodge

Eyes in the house-two eyes except.

They styled their house "The Lodge."

What right had a lounger up their lane?
But by creeping very close,

With the good wall's help their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to oes,

Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic-there,

By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether"-
And stole from stair to stair,

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas!
We loved, sir; used to meet.

How sad and bad and mad it was!

But then, how it was sweet!

ROBERT BROWNING.

HIGHLAND MARY.

YE banks, and braes, and streams around

The castle o' Montgomery,

Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!

There simmer first unfauld her robes,

And there the langest tarry;