'twould wait a little e'er it passes
To meet the old grey sea.

If youth could understand the tears and sorrow,
The sombre days that age and knowledge bring,
It would not be so eager for the morrow
Or spendthrift of the spring.

If love but learned how soon life treads its measure,
How short and swift its hours when all is told,
Each kiss and tender word 'twould count and treasure,
As misers count their gold.

THE PETITION

Sweet April! from out of the hidden place
Where you keep your green and gold,
We pray thee to bring us a gift of grace,
When the little leaves unfold.

Oh! make us glad with the things that are young;
Give our hearts the quickened thrills
That used to answer each robin that sung
In the days of daffodils.

For what is the worth of all that we gain,
If we lose the old delight,
That came in the time of sun and rain,
When the whole round world seemed right?

It was then we gave, as we went along,
The faith that to-day we keep;
And those April days were for mirth and song,
While the nights were made for sleep.

Yet, though we follow with steps that are slow
The feet that dance and that run;
We would still be friends with the winds that blow,
And companions to the sun!

HALLOWE'EN

There is an old Italian legend which says that on the eve of
the beloved festival of All Saints (Hallowe'en) the souls of the
dead return to earth for a little while and go by on the wind.
The feast of All Saints is followed by the feast of the dead, when
for a day only the sound of the _Miserere_ is heard throughout the
cities of Italy.

Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away--
The dead, forgotten this many a day!

And the dead remembered--ay! long and well--
And the little children whose spirits dwell
In God's green garden of asphodel.

Have you reached the country of all content,
0 souls we know, since the day you went
From this time-worn world, where your years were spent?

Would you come back to the sun and the rain,
The sweetness, the strife, the thing we call pain,
And then unravel life's tangle again?

I lean to the dark--Hush!--was it a sigh?
Or the painted vine-leaves that rustled by?
Or only a night-bird's echoing cry?

THE GLEANER

As children gather daisies down green ways
Mid butterflies and bees,
To-day across the meadows of past days
I gathered memories.

I stored my hear