Where Philip fed, she would not feed;
Where Philip walked, she would not go;
The books he read she would not read,
But live her separate life, and, so,
Have sole supplies to meet his need.

He held his mission and his range;
His way and work were all his own;
And she would give him in exchange
What she could win and she alone,
Of life and learning, fresh and strange.

XXIII.

While thus she sat in musing mood,
Determining her life's emprise,
The sunlight flushed the distant wood,
Then, coming closer, filled her eyes,
And glorified her solitude.

The clouds were shivered by the lance
Sped downward by the morning sun,
And from her heart, in swift advance,
The shadows vanished, one by one,
Till more than sunlight filled the manse.

She closed the volume with a gust
That sprent the light with powdered gold;
Then placed it high to hide and rust
Where, curious and over-bold
She found it, lying in its dust.

Her soul was light, her path was plain;
One shadow only drooped above,--
The shadow of a heart and brain
So charged with overwhelming love
That it oppressed and gave her pain.

The modest comb that kept her hair;
To Philip was a golden crown;
And every ringlet was a snare,
And every hat, and every gown
And slipper, something more than fair.

His love had glorified her grace,
And she was his, and not her own,--
So wholly his she had no place
Beside him on his lonely throne,
Or share in love's divine embrace.

And knowing that the coming days
Would strip her features of their mask,
That duty then would speak her praise,
And love become a loyal task,
Save he should find beneath the glaze

His fiery love of her had spread,
Diviner things he had not seen,
She feared her woman's heart and head
Were armed with charms and powers too mean
To win the boon she coveted.

But still she saw and held her plan,
And fear made way for springing hope.
If she was man's, then hers was man:
Both held their own in even scope;
And then and there her life began.

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHIES.

I.

A wife is like an unknown sea;--
Least known to him who thinks he knows
Where all the shores of promise be,
Where lie the islands of repose,
And where the rocks that he must flee.

Capricious winds, uncertain tides,
Drive the young sailor on and on,
Till all his charts and all his g