ld
A daring fancy, strangely sweet,
Comes o'er me, that the crippled child
That crouches at my feet--

Has found her head a resting-place
Upon my shoulder, while my kiss
Across the pallor of her face
Leaves crimson trails of bliss.

FAITH

The sea was breaking at my feet,
And looking out across the tide,
Where placid waves and heaven meet,
I thought me of the Other Side.

For on the beach on which I stood
Were wastes of sands, and wash, and roar,
Low clouds, and gloom, and solitude,
And wrecks, and ruins--nothing more.

"O, tell me if beyond the sea
A heavenly port there is!" I cried,
And back the echoes laughingly
"There is! there is!" replied.

THE LOST THRILL

I grow so weary, someway, of all thing
That love and loving have vouchsafed to me,
Since now all dreamed-of sweets of ecstasy
Am I possessed of: The caress that clings--
The lips that mix with mine with murmurings
No language may interpret, and the free,
Unfettered brood of kisses, hungrily
Feasting in swarms on honeyed blossomings
Of passion's fullest flower--For yet I miss
The essence that alone makes love divine--
The subtle flavoring no tang of this
Weak wine of melody may here define:--
A something found and lost in the first kiss
A lover ever poured through lips of mine.

AT DUSK

A something quiet and subdued
In all the faces that we meet;
A sense of rest, a solitude
O'er all the crowded street;
The very noises seem to be
Crude utterings of harmony,
And all we hear, and all we see,
Has in it something sweet.

Thoughts come to us as from a dream
Of some long-vanished yesterday;
The voices of the children seem
Like ours, when young as they;
The hand of Charity extends
To meet Misfortune's, where it blends,
Veiled by the dusk--and oh, my friends,
Would it were dusk alway!

ANOTHER RIDE FROM GHENT TO AIX

We sprang for the side-holts--my gripsack and I--
It dangled--I dangled--we both dangled by.
"Good speed!" cried mine host, as we landed at last--
"Speed?" chuckled the watch we went lumbering past;
Behind shut the switch, and out through the rear door
I glared while we waited a half hour more.

I had