reached the scene,
   His boy looked up and smiled
From the stiffening fold of the arm, death-cold,
   Of Meg, who had died for his child.
Oh! idle words are a woman’s curse
   Who loves as woman can;
For put to the test, she will bare her breast
   And die for the sake of the man.

SOLITUDE

Laugh, and the world laughs with you:
Weep, and you weep alone;
   For the sad old earth
   Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
   The echoes bound
   To a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
   They want full measure
   Of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all;
   There are none to decline
   Your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by;
   Succeed and give,
   And it helps you live,
But it cannot help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train;
   But one by one
   We must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

THE GOSSIPS

A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
   Was hanging her head through the long golden hours;
And early one morning I saw her tears falling,
   And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers.
The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded,
   Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose:
“That wild roving Bee who was hanging about her,
   Has jilted her squarely, as every one knows.

“I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing,
   His airs and his speeches so fine and so sweet,
Just how it would end; but no one would believe me,
   For all were quite ready to fall at his feet.”
“Indeed, you are wrong,” said the Lily-belle proudly,
   “I cared nothing for him; he called on me once,
And would have come often, no doubt, if I’d asked him,
   But though he was handsome, I thought him a dunce.”

“Now, now, that’s not true,” cried the tall Oleander.
   “He has travelled and seen every flower that grows;
And one who has supped in the garden of princes,
   We all might have known would not we with the Rose.”
“But wasn’t she proud when he showed her attention?
   And she let him caress her,” said sly Mignonette;
“And I used to see it and blush for her folly.
   The silly thing thinks he will come to her yet.”

“I thought he was splendid,” said pretty pert Larkspur,
   “So dark, and so grand with that gay cloak of gold;
But he tried once to kiss me, the impudent fellow!
   And I got offended; I thought him too bold.”
“Oh, fie!” laughed the Almond, “that does for a story.
   Though I hang down my head, yet I see all that goes;
And I saw you reach out trying hard to detain him,
   But he just tapped your cheek and flew by to the Rose.

“He cared nothing for her; he only was flirting
   To while away time, as I very well knew;
So I turned a cold shoulder on all his advances,
   Because I was certain his heart was untrue.”
“The Rose is served right for her folly in trusting
   An oily-tongued stranger,” quoth proud Columbine.
“I knew what he was, and thought once I would warn her,
   But of course the affair was no business of mine.”

“Oh, well,” cried the Peony, shrugging her shoulders,
   “I saw all along that the Bee was a flirt;
But the Rose has been always so praised and so petted,
   I thought a good lesson would do her no hurt.”
Just then came the sound of a love-song sung sweetly,
   I saw my proud Rose lifting up her bowed head;
And the talk of the gossips was hushed in a moment,
   And the flowers all listened to hear what was said.

And the dark, handsome Bee, with his cloak o’er his shoulder,
   Came swift through the sunlight and kissed the sad Rose,
And whispered: “My darling, I’ve roved the world over,
   And you are the loveliest flower that grows.”

PLATONIC

I knew it the first of the summer,
   I knew it the same at the end,
That you and your love were plighted,
   But couldn’t you be my friend?
Couldn’t we sit in the twilight,
   Couldn’t we walk on the shore
With only a pleasant friendship
   To bind us, and nothing more?

There was not a word of folly
   Spoken between us two,
Though we lingered oft in the garden
   Till the roses were wet with dew.
We touched on a thousand subjects—
   The moon and the worlds above,—
And our talk was tinctured with science,
   And everything else, save love.

A wholly Platonic friendship
   You said I had proven to you
Could bind a man and a woman
   The whole long season through,
With never a thought of flirting,
   Though both were in their youth
What would you have said, my lady,
   If you had known the truth!

What would you have done, I wonder,
   Had I gone on my knees to you
And told you my passionate story,
   There in the dusk and the dew?
My burning, burdensome story,
   Hidden and hushed so long—
My story of hopeless loving—
   Say, would you have thought it wrong?

But I fought with my heart and conquered,
   I hid my wound from sight;
You were going away in the morning,
   And I said a calm good-night.
But now when I sit in the twilight,
   Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite Platonic,
   Comes surging over me.

And a passionate longing fills me
   For the roses, the dusk, the dew;
For the beautiful summer vanished,
   For the moonlight walks—and you.

GRANDPA’S CHRISTMAS

In his great cushioned chair by the fender
   An old man sits dreaming to-night,
His withered hands, licked by the tender
   Warm rays of the red anthracite,
Are folded before him, all listless;
   His dim eyes are fixed on the blaze,
While over him sweeps the resistless
   Flood-tide of old days.

He hears not the mirth in the hallway,
   He hears not the sounds of good cheer,
That through the old homestead ring alway
   In the glad Christmas-time of the year.
He heeds not the chime of sweet voices
   As the last gifts are hung on the tree.
In a long-vanished day he rejoices—
   In his lost Used-to-be.

He has gone back across dead Decembers
   To his childhood’s fair land of delight;
And his mother’s sweet smile he remembers,
   As he hangs up his stocking at night.
He remembers the dream-haunted slumber
   All broken and restless because
Of the visions that came without number
   Of dear Santa Claus.

Again, in his manhood’s beginning,
   He sees himself thrown on the world,
And into the vortex of sinning
   By Pleasure’s strong arms he is hurled.
He hears the sweet Christmas bells ringing,
   “Repent ye, repent ye, and pray”;
But he joins with his comrades in singing
   A bacchanal lay.

Again he stands under the holly
   With a blushing face lifted to his
For love has been stronger than folly,
   And has turned him from vice unto bliss;
And the whole world is lit with new glory
   As the sweet vows are uttered again,
While the Christmas bells tell the old story
   Of