20.

Then, were the world well stript
Of the gear wherein equipped
We can stand apart,

Heart dispense with heart

In the sun, with the flowers unnipped, Oh, the world's hangings ripped, We were both in a bare-walled crypt!

21.

Each in the crypt would cry “But one freezes here! and why? When a heart as chill

At

my own would thrill

Back to life, and its fires out-fly?
Heart, shall we live or die?

The rest,. settle it by and by!"

22.

So, she'd efface the score,
And forgive me as before.
Just at twelve o'clock

I shall hear her knock

In the worst of a storm's uproar

1 shall pull her through the door

I shall have her for evermore!

EVELYN HOPE.

1.

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass.

Little has yet been changed, I think The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

2.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name —

It was not her time to love: beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

3.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew
And just because I was thrice as old,

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside ?

No, indeed! for God above

4.

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love,
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet.
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few
Much is to learn and much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come,

5.

at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say, In the lower earth, in the years long still,

That body and soul so pure and gay?

Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium 's red · And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

6.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

7.

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;

My heart seemed full as it could hold

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold. So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep –

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.

There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY.

(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY.)

1.

HAD I but plenty of money, money enough and to

spare,

The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city

square.

Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

2.

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!

There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

3.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a

bull