THE OPEN WINDOW.

THE old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravel pathway,

The light and shadow played.

I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air,

But the faces of the children

They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door,

He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens, They played not in the hall,

But shadow, and silence, and sadness Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches
With sweet, familiar tone,

But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone.

And the boy, who walked beside me, He could not understand

Why closer in mine, ah! closer,

I pressed his soft, warm hand.

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.

THE snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white.

Every pine, and fir, and hemlock • Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree

Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds, new roofed with Carrara,
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,

The rails were softened to swan's down,-
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds
Like brown leaves whistling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood,

How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,

Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?" And I told of the good All-father

Who cares for us all below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,

When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding

The scar of that deep-stabbed woe.

And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!"

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her, And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister

Folded close under deepening snow.

TWO YEARS OLD.

PLAYING on the carpet near me
Is a little cherub girl;

And her presence, much I fear me,

Sets my senses in a whirl;

For a book is near me lying,
Full of grace philosophizing,
And I own I'm vainly trying

There my thoughts to hold;
But, in spite of my essaying,
They will evermore be straying
To that cherub near me playing,
Only two years old.

With her hair so long and flaxen,
And her sunny eyes of blue,
And her cheek so plump and waxen,
She is charming to the view.
Then her voice, to all who hear it,
Breathes a sweet entrancing spirit.
O, to be forever near it,

Is a joy untold;

For 't is ever sweetly telling

To my heart, with rapture swelling,
Of affection inly dwelling, -
Only two years old.

With a new delight I'm hearing

All her sweet attempts at words,