ne till the day they die,
Even as I, yea, even as I!

THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

The blackened walnut in its spicy hull
Rots where it fell;
And, in the orchard, where the trees stand full,
The pear's ripe bell
Drops; and the log-house in the bramble lane,
From whose low door
Stretch yellowing acres of the corn and cane,
He sees once more.

The cat-bird sings upon its porch of pine;
And o'er its gate,
All slender-podded, twists the trumpet-vine,
A leafy weight;
And in the woodland, by the spring, mayhap,
With eyes of joy
Again he bends to set a rabbit-trap,
A brown-faced boy.

Then, whistling, through the underbrush he goes,
Out of the wood,
Where, with young cheeks, red as an _Autumn_ rose,
Beneath her hood,
His sweetheart waits, her school-books on her arm;
And now it seems
Beside his chair he sees his wife's fair form--
The old man dreams.

SINCE THEN.

I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the berry blooms the bees
Huddled wee heads and went to sleep,
Rocked by the silence and the breeze.

I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And, tunnelling his thoroughfare
Beneath the loam, I watched the mole--
Stealth's own self could not take more care.

I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
I heard the crickets' drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark--
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.

And then the moon rose; and a white
Low bough of blossoms--grown almost
Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight
To tryst,--dear heart!--I thought your ghost....
The wood is haunted since that night.

COMRADES.

Down through the woods, along the way
That fords the stream; by rock and tree,
Where in the bramble-bell the bee
Swings; and through twilights green and gray
The red-bird flashes suddenly,
My thoughts went wandering to-day.

I found the fields where, row on row,
The blackberries hang black with fruit;
Where, nesting at the elder's root,
The partridge whistles soft and low;
The fields, that billow to the foot
Of those old hills we used