hands, like rose leaves
Dropt from a rose, lay still,
Never to snatch at the sunshine,
That crept to the shrouded sill!

We measured the sleeping baby
With ribbons white as snow,
For the shining rose-wood casket
That waited him below;
And out of the darkened chamber
We crept with a childless moan:
To the height of the sinless Angels
Our little one had grown!

THE LIGHT OF DREAMS.

Last night I walked in happy dreams,
The paths I used to know;
I heard a sound of running streams,
And saw the violets blow;
I breathed a scent of daffodils;
And faint and far withdrawn,
A light upon the distant hills,
Like morning, led me on.

And childish hands clung fast to mine,
And little pattering feet
Trod with me thro' the still sunshine
Of by-ways green and sweet;
The flax-flower eyes of tender blue,
The locks of palest gold,
Were just the eyes and locks I knew
And loved, and lost--of old!

By many a green familiar lane
Our pathway seemed to run
Between long fields of waving grain,
And slopes of dew and sun;
And still we seemed to breathe alway
A scent of daffodils,
And that soft light of breaking day
Shone on the distant hills.

And out of slumber suddenly
I seemed to wake, and know
The little feet, that followed me,
Were ashes long ago!
And in a burst of rapturous tears
I clung to her and said:
"Dear Pitty-pat! The lonesome years
They told me you were dead!

"O, when the mother drew, of old,
About her loving knee
The little heads of dusk and gold,
I know that we were three!
And then there was an empty chair--
A stillness, strange and new:
We could not find you anywhere--
And we were only two!"

She pointed where serenely bright
The hills yet glowed afar:
"Sweet sister, yon ineffable light
Is but the gates ajar!
And evermore, by night and day,
We children still are three,
Tho' I have gone a little way
To open the gates," said she.

Then all in colors faint and fine
The morning round me shone,
The little hands slipt out of mine,
And I was left alone;
But still I smelled the daffodils,
I heard the running streams;
And that far glory on the hills--
Was it the light of dreams?

BEN HAFED'S MEED.

Ben Hafed, when the vernal rain
Warmed the chill heart of earth again,
Tilled the dull plot of sterile ground,
Within the dank and narrow round
That compassed his obscure domain;
With earnest zeal, thro' heat and cold,
H