And all myself am running seaward.

I ONLY WISH TO KNOW.

Pray do not take the kiss again
I risked so much in getting,
Nor let my blushes make you vain
To your and my regretting.
I'm sure I've heard your sex repeat
A thousand times or so,
That stolen kisses are most sweet--
I only wished to know!

I own 'twas not so neatly done
As you know how to do it,
And that the fright out-did the fun,
But still I do not rue it.
I can afford the extra beat
My heart took at your "Oh!"
Which plainly said _that_ kiss was sweet--
_When I so wished to know!_

Nay, I will not give back the kiss,
Nor will I take a second;
_Creme de la creme_ of pain and bliss
This one shall e'er be reckoned.
The pain was mine, the bliss was--_ours_,
You smile to hear it so;
But the same thought was surely yours,
As I have cause to know.

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

The highest use of happy love is this;
To make us loving to the loveless ones;
Willing indeed to halve our meed of bliss,
If our sweet plenty others' want atones:
Of love's abundance may God give thee store,
To spend in love's sweet charities, LENORE.

LOVE'S FOOTSTEPS.

I sang a song of olden times,
Sitting upon our sacred hill--
Sang it to feel my bosom thrill
To the sweet pathos of its rhymes.

I trilled the music o'er and o'er,
And happy, gazed upon the scene,
Thinking that there had never been
So blue a sea, so fair a shore.

A vague half dream was in my mind;
I hardly saw how sat the sun;
I noted not the day was gone
The rosy western hills behind.

'Till, soft as if Apollo blew
For me the sweet Thessalian flute,
I heard a sound which made me mute,
And more than singing thrilled me through.

THY STEP--well known and well beloved!
No more I dreamed on shore or sea;
I thought of, saw but only thee,
Nor spoke, but blushed to be so moved.

THE POET'S MINISTERS.

POET.

Oh, my soul! the draught is bitter
Yet it must be sweetly drunken:
Heart and soul! the grinding fetter
Galls, yet have ye never shrunken:
Heart and soul, and pining spirit,
Fail me not! no coward weakness
Such as ye are should inherit--
Be ye strong even in your me