On her drooping eyelids,
Tempering the light

That shines too bright for parting—
Press a soft good night.

PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1860.

Brown eyes, brown hair, a rich turban hat,
Throwing half shadow a black lace fall;
A mouth ever ready to let in the light
On notes of ivory evenly small.

Swan neck, tight bodice, sweet lips that part
With a wet coral freshness pleasant to see,
Where speech is a ripple of wavelets of sound
In joyous welcomings winning and free.
A tender, neat-gloved, warm little hand

Expressively, carefully laid in your own,
As something belonging, you understand,
To a heart beating under a maiden zone.

Only a kiss!

One among many,

Taken or given, resented, forgiven;

Requested and prized; denied and despised.

Here and there cometh one
Sometimes, not often,

A something to soften
The sorrows of Earth;

A well of sweet water

In a desert of dearth.

Oh! Youth who did crave it!

Oh! Damsel who gave it, in pure love up-springing: To memory clinging,

Each will think of it fondly, from that day till Death. Like wind of the South

As it plays o'er the flowers
In orient bowers,

So the balm of sweet breath

Touches lightly the mouth.

One ere the maiden is led to the altar;
A farewell, with God bless you!
In accents that falter;

While bridesmaids are calling,

And midst orange blossoms

Tear dew-drops are falling.

One in the eventide silently blessing;
A maiden on tip-toe her timid lips pressing
So faintly caressing:

A last gift of remembrance, of fondness a sign
Inspiring a semblance supremely Divine.
Yet only a kiss! One among millions
Billions and trillions, quadrillions quintillions,
Myriads of millions; in numberless count,
Defying amount.

Like wavelets of ocean
Their silver crests lifting,

Past numbering, drifting

To some unknown shore;
To and fro and unceasing

Till time is no more.

WITHERED

FLOWERS.

Una Giustificazione.

O love beloved in early days!

Love of our inmost heart the core. What says the Master in his lays ? True love is love for evermore !

Bee busy garnering of the past,

Sweet golden feast of memory's store:
A store that after death shall last,
For love is love for evermore !

Life's paths are strewn with petals frail,
By Time's dark tempests' hurrying roar :
The shatter'd leaves on Earth lie pale;
In Heaven is love for evermore !

Love changes like those leaflets blue

That once the maid's fond bosom wore:

Now withered forms, devoid of hue,
Yet holy deemed for evermore!

I could not cast the flowers away,
So dearly prized leng years before:
Their withered blossoms seemed to say
True love is love for evermore !

A CONSOLATION VALENTINE.

Dream of the sunny hours!

List not to the cold winds moan;

As the falling dying embers

Drop on the warm hearth stone.

The oxlip fades;

The broad leaf'd chesnuts lift their bare cones lorn;
Love's kisses have not flushed the red May thorn.
In greensward glades

Young violets tearful eyes freeze in the wintry dawn.
In dusky nooks,

No smiling wood anemones are found;

Wind flowering, watching Oread haunted ground
With sideward looks

For trysting maids that wait in blissful love-spells bound.
Yet once May broke

From cramped old Winter's grasp, and filled the air
With grateful sense of gladness everywhere;

Till angry spoke

Fierce thunder, and far flashed the vivid lightning's glare.

Dark loomed the hills;

Dull leaden clouds burst into stormy rain;

And Winter dragged back poor drenched May again. With shivering chills,

Killing the sweet wild flowers that decked her paths in vain.

And yet again

May scaped from feeble Winter's weakened hold;
And chased cloud shadows o'er the laughing wold;
While rose the strain

Of lavrocks soaring where gorse gleams with honied gold.

And up the slope

Of steep and rugged banks, by ocean's stream,

Where those deep yellow blossoms deepest gleam ;
Like stars of hope

That watch at early morn the first bright orient beam.

Those happy hours!

May played around the cliff that Shakespear crowned

With echo never dying; where the mound
Of Dover towers,

And Walmer's sentry steps his solitary round.

So fresh, so fair!

Sweet May runs giddy with delicious balm;
And drinks long draughts of the cool sea breeze calm,
That fans her hair

And winds about her heart an incense breathing charm!
A violet haze

Hangs o'er the wavelet dimpled halcyon sea,
Through gorges green seen laughing placidly;
While freshly plays

The zephyrs' briny breath upon the castled lea.
On sea and shore

Nature lay basking long in happy guise;

Till evening came with tears and moaning sighs,
And woke the roar

That warns the nightly watch when angry storm waves rise.

The shingled beach,

Morosely torn by the complaining surge

Of greedy waves, groaned back its dismal dirge.
The Petrels' screech

Woke the vexed leaden morn on the far eastern verge.

In mute despair

Earth wept beneath the wintry storm clouds drear:
Wept for feared famine of the golden ear:

No hope was there,

And cowering nature shrank chilled with a ghastly fear!

At length the sun,

Nearing the tropic, rising fierce and high

Looks through the watery clouds with angry eye
On fallows dun;

And casts a pitying ray where the drowned nestlings lie.