little instant they were mine.

O life! how dear thou hast become:
She laughed at dawn and I was dumb,
But evening counsels best prevail.
Fair shine the blue that o'er her spreads,
Green be the pastures where she treads,
The maiden with the milking-pail!

THE LETTER L.

ABSENT.

We sat on grassy slopes that meet
With sudden dip the level strand;
The trees hung overhead--our feet
Were on the sand.

Two silent girls, a thoughtful man,
We sunned ourselves in open light,
And felt such April airs as fan
The Isle of Wight;

And smelt the wall-flower in the crag
Whereon that dainty waft had fed,
Which made the bell-hung cowslip wag
Her delicate head;

And let alighting jackdaws fleet
Adown it open-winged, and pass
Till they could touch with outstretched feet
The warmed grass.

The happy wave ran up and rang
Like service bells a long way off,
And down a little freshet sprang
From mossy trough,

And splashed into a rain of spray,
And fretted on with daylight's loss,
Because so many bluebells lay
Leaning across.

Blue martins gossiped in the sun,
And pairs of chattering daws flew by,
And sailing brigs rocked softly on
In company.

Wild cherry-boughs above us spread,
The whitest shade was ever seen,
And flicker, flicker, came and fled
Sun spots between.

Bees murmured in the milk-white bloom,
As babes will sigh for deep content
When their sweet hearts for peace make room,
As given, not lent.

And we saw on: we said no word,
And one was lost in musings rare,
One buoyant as the waft that stirred
Her shining hair.

His eyes were bent upon the sand,
Unfathomed deeps within them lay.
A slender rod was in his hand--
A hazel spray.

Her eyes were resting on his face,
As shyly glad, by stealth to glean
Impressions of his manly grace
And guarded mien;

The mouth with steady sweetness set,
And eyes conveying unaware
The distant hint of some regret
That harbored there.

She gazed, and in the tender flush
That made her face like roses blown,
And in the radiance and the hush,
Her thought was shown.

It was a happy thing to sit
So near, nor mar his reverie;
She looked not for a part in it,
So meek was she.

But it was solace for her eyes,
And for her heart, that yearned to him,
To watch apart in loving wise
Those musings dim.

Lost--lost, and g