And I watch the children's posies,
And my idle heart is whispering,
"Bring whatever the years may bring,

The flowers will blossom, the birds will sing,
And there 'll always be primroses."

Looking before me here in the sun,
I see the Aprils one after one,
Primrosed Aprils one by one,
Primrosed Aprils on and on,
Till the floating prospect closes
In golden glimmers that rise and rise,
And perhaps are gleams of Paradise,
And perhaps too far for mortal eyes -
New years of fresh primroses,

Years of earth's primroses,

Springs to be, and springs for me

Of distant dim primroses.

My soul lies out like a basking hound,
A hound that dreams and dozes;

Along my life my length I lay,

I fill to-morrow and yesterday,

I am warm with the suns that have long since set, I am warm with the summers that are not yet,

And like one who dreams and dozes

Softly afloat on a sunny sea,

Two worlds are whispering over me,
And there blows a wind of roses

From the backward shore to the shore before,
From the shore before to the backward shore,

And like two clouds that meet and pour
Each through each, till core in core
A single self reposes,

The nevermore with the evermore
Above me mingles and closes;

As my soul lies out like the basking hound,
And wherever it lies seems happy ground,
And when, awakened by some sweet sound,
A dreamy eye uncloses,

I see a blooming world around,
And I lie amid primroses,-

Years of sweet primroses,
Springs of fresh primroses,
Springs to be, and springs for me
Of distant dim primroses.

O, to lie a-dream, a-dream,

To feel I may dream and to know

you deem

My work is done forever,

And the palpitating fever

That gains and loses, loses and gains,

And beats the hurrying blood on the brunt of a thousand

pains

Cooled at once by that bloodlet

Upon the parapet;

And all the tedious taskéd toil of the difficult long endeavor

Solved and quit by no more fine

Than these limbs of mine,

Spanned and measured once for all

By that right hand I lost,

Bought up at so light a cost

As one bloody fall

On the soldier's bed,

And three days on the ruined wall
Among the thirstless dead.

O, to think my name is crossed

From duty's muster-roll ;

That I may slumber through the clarion call,
And live the joy of an embodied soul

Free as a liberated ghost.

O, to feel a life of deed

Was emptied out to feed

That fire of pain that burned so brief a while, -
That fire from which I come as the dead come
Forth from the irreparable tomb,.

Or as a martyr on his funeral pile
Heaps up the burdens other men do bear
Through years of segregated care,

And takes the total load
Upon his shoulders broad,
And steps from earth to God.

O, to think, through good or ill,
Whatever I am you'll love me still;
O, to think, though dull I be,
You that are so grand and free,
You that are so bright and gay,
Will pause to hear me when I will,
As though my head were gray;
And though there's little I can say,

Each will look kind with honor while he hears.

-

And to your loving ears

My thoughts will halt with honorable scars,

And when my dark voice stumbles with the weight Of what it doth relate

(Like that blind comrade, - blinded in the wars,

Who bore the one-eyed brother that was lame),
You'll remember 't is the same

That cried," Follow me,"

Upon a summer's day;

And I shall understand with unshed tears

This great reverence that I see,

And bless the day,

and Thee,

Lord God of victory!

And she,

Perhaps O, even she

May look as she looked when I knew her
In those old days of childish sooth,
Ere my boyhood dared to woo her.
I will not seek nor sue her,

For I'm neither fonder nor truer

Than when she slighted my love-lorn youth,
My giftless, graceless, guinealess truth,
And I only lived to rue her.
But I'll never love another,

And, in spite of her lovers and lands,
She shall love me yet, my brother!

As a child that holds by his mother,
While his mother speaks his praises,
Holds with eager hands,

And ruddy and silent stands

In the ruddy and silent daisies,
And hears her bless her boy,
And lifts a wondering joy,
So I'll not seek nor sue her,

But I'll leave my glory to woo her,
And I'll stand like a child beside,
And from behind the purple pride
I'll lift my eyes unto her,

And I shall not be denied.

And you will love her, brother dear,

And perhaps next year you'll bring me here
All through the balmy April-tide,

And she will trip like spring by my side,

And be all the birds to my ear.

And here all three we 'll sit in the sun,
And see the Aprils one by one,
Primrosed Aprils on and on,
Till the floating prospect closes
In golden glimmers that rise and rise,
And perhaps are gleams of Paradise,
And perhaps too far for mortal eyes,
New springs of fresh primroses,
Springs of earth's primroses,
Springs to be, and springs for me,
Of distant dim primroses.

VOL XIV.

9

M