s,
She fills our hearts and sight
With wonder and delight.

And when tired thought my sense benumbs,
Or when past shadows roll
Their memories on my soul,
Oft breaking through the darkness comes
A solace and surprise,
Her wonder-lighted eyes.

How grand and beautiful the love
She silently conceals,
Nor save in act reveals!
She broods o'er kindness; as a dove
Sits musing in the nest
Of the life beneath her breast.

The ready freshness that was known
In man's authentic prime,
The earliest breath of time,
Throughout her household ways is shown;
Mild greatness subtly wrought
With quaint and childlike thought.

She sits to music: fingers fall,
Air shakes; her lifted voice
Makes flattered hope rejoice,
And shivering through Time's phantom pall,
Its wavering rents display
Dim splendour, far away;

Where her perfection, glory-crowned,
Shall rest in love for ever;
When mortal systems sever,
And the orbed universe is drowned,
Leaving the empty skies
The blank of death-closed eyes.

Deep in this truth I root my trust;
And know the dear One's praise,
Her mutely gracious ways,
When all her loveliness is dust
And mosses rase her name,
Will bless our world the same.

As scent of flowers her worth was born
Her joyous goodness spread
Like music over head,
Smiles now as smiles a plain of corn
When in the winds of June,
Lit by a shining noon.

A gap of sunlight in the storm;
A blossom ere the spring;
Immortal whispering;
A spirit manifest through form
Which we can touch and kiss,--
To life such beauty is.

Ah! who can doubt, though he may doubt
Our solid earth will run
A future round the sun,
That gentle impulse given out
Can never fail or die,
But throbs eternally!

VII. HER SHADOW.

At matin time where creepers interlace
We sauntered slowly, for we loved the place,
And talked of passing things; I, pleased to trace
Through leafy mimicry the true leaves made,
The stateliness and beauty of her shade;

A wavering of strange purples dimly seen,
It gloomed the daisy's light, the kingcup's sheen,
And drank up sunshine from the vital green.
That silent shadow moving on the grass
Struck me with terror it should ever pass

And be blank nothing in the coming years
Where, in the dreadful shadow of my fears,
Her shrouded form I saw through blurring tears,
My Darling's shrouded form in be