ike to meet it in the night.

And yet it comes. As certainly as death,
And far more cruel since death ends all pain,
On lonesome nights we feel its icy breath,
And turn and face the thing we fancied slain.

With shrinking hearts, we view the ghastly shape;
We look into its eyes with fear and dread,
And know that we can never more escape
Until the grave doth fold us with the dead.

On the swift maelstrom of the eddying world
We hurl our woes, and think they are no more.
But round and round by dizzy billows whirled,
They reach out sinewy arms and swim to shore.

ONLY A LINE

Only a line in the paper,
That somebody read aloud,
At a table of languid boarders,
To the dull indifferent crowd.

Markets and deaths--and a marriage:
And the reader read them all.
How could he know a hope died then,
And was wrapped in a funeral pall.

Only a line in the paper,
Read in a casual way,
But the glow went out of one young life,
And left it cold and grey.

Colder than bleak December,
Greyer than walls of rock,
But the reader paused, and the room grew full
Of laughter and idle talk.

If one slipped off to her chamber,
Why, who could dream or know,
That one brief line in the paper
Had sent her away with her woe?

Away into lonely sorrow,
To bitter and blinding tears;
Only a line in the paper,
But it meant such desolate years.

PARTING

Lean down, and kiss me, O my love, my own;
The day is near when thy fond heart will miss me;
And o'er my low green bed, with bitter moan,
Thou wilt lean down, but cannot clasp or kiss me.

How strange it is, that I, so loving thee,
And knowing we must part, perchance to-morrow,
Do comfort find, thinking how great will be
Thy lonely desolation, and thy sorrow.

And stranger--sadder, O mine own other part,
That I should grudge thee some surcease of weeping;
Why do I not rejoice, that in thy heart,
Sweet love will bloom again when I am sleeping?

Nay, make no promise. I would place no bar
Upon thy future, even wouldst thou let me.
Thou hast, thou dost, well love me, like a man:
And, like a man, in time thou wilt forget me.

Why should I care, so near the Infinite--
Why should I care, that thou wilt cease to miss me?
O God! these earthly ties are knit so tight--
Quick, quick, lean lower, O my love, and kiss me!

ESTRANGED

So well I knew your habits and your ways,