TWO GOOD-NIGHTS. Good-night, mine enemy, good-night! And thou hast known care's rust, ambition's blight, O friend of mine, good-night, good-night! As mountain-torrents, thirsting for the sea, Press headlong on past hamlet, waste, and lea, And, mountain-thwarted, find some other way, Sun-scorched, wind-scourged, stay not nor night nor day, Their currents whispering low, "The Sea! the Sea!" So runs my vexed and baffled life to thee. Patience! we yet shall meet. I hear the roar, And catch salt-scented breezes from the shore. Good-night, good-night! Markedly different in tone from the above is the poem here given, also from an anonymous author. Its significance is conveyed in its title. LINES FOR AN ALBUM: TO ACCOMPANY AN URN. It was a flower in fancy bred; I thought to plant it living here: So dies the soul of many a thought Yet if in friendly sympathy You stop to gaze upon this urn, Still through its ashes burn! A feeling which all growing natures must have experienced, and of which even stagnant souls are dimly though enviously aware, is finely expressed in the poem here given. OUTGROWN. Nay, you wrong her, my friend; she's not fickle; her love she has simply outgrown: One can read the whole matter, translating her heart by the light of one's own. Can you bear me to talk with you frankly? There is much that my heart would say, And you know we were children together, have quarrelled and "made up" in play. And so, for the sake of old friendship, I venture to tell you the truth, As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier youth. Five summers ago, when you wooed her, you stood on the self-same plane, Face to face, heart to heart, never dreaming your souls could be parted again. She loved you at that time entirely, in the bloom of her life's early May, And it is not her fault, I repeat it, that she does not love you to-day. Nature never stands still, nor souls either. They ever go up or go down; And hers has been steadily soaring;—but how has it been with your own? She has struggled, and yearned, and aspired,—grown purer and wiser each year; The stars are not farther above you, in yon luminous atmosphere. For she whom you crowned with fresh roses down yonder, five summers ago, Has learned that the first of our duties to God and ourselves is to grow. Her eyes they are sweeter and calmer, but their vision is clearer as well; Her voice has a tenderer cadence, but is pure as a silver bell. Her face has the look worn by those who with God and his angels have talked; The white robes she wears are less white than the spirits with whom she has walked. And you? Have you aimed at the highest? Have you, too, aspired and prayed? Have you looked upon evil unsullied? have you conquered it undismayed? Have you, too, grown purer and wiser as the months and the years have rolled on? Did you meet her this morning rejoicing in the triumph of victory won? Nay, hear me !-the truth cannot harm you :-When today in her presence you stood, Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as that of her womanhood? Go measure yourself by her standard. Look back on the years that have fled; Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of her girlhood is dead! She cannot look down to her lover; her love, like her soul, aspires; He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle its holy fires. Now, farewell! For the sake of old friendship, I have ventured to tell you the truth, As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier youth. JULIA C. R. DORR. The lowliest things oft lead to the highest thoughts. Even the flutter of a swallow's wing may open a passage to the loftiest realms of philosophy and aspiration. HIGHER TENANTS. After winter fires were ended, and the last spark, vanish ing From the embers of our hearthstone, flew into the sky of spring, In the night-time, in the morning,--when the air was hushed around, Throbbing vaguely on the silence, came a dull, mysterious sound, Like the sultry hum of thunder, at the sullen close of day, Out of clouds that brood and threaten on the horizon far away. ""Tis," I said," the April thunder," and I thought of flowers that spring, And of trees that stand in blossom, and of birds that fly and sing. But the sound, repeated often,-nearer, more familiar grown, From our chimney seemed descending, and the swallow's wings were known. Where the lithe flames leaped and lightened, charm of host and cheer of guest, There the emigrant of summer chose its homestead, built its nest. Then I dreamed of poets dwelling, like the swallow, long ago, Overhead in dusky places ere their songs were heard below, Overhead in humble attics, ministers of higher things: Underneath were busy people, overhead were heavenly |