THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.

WE sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The light-house, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again ;

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make

A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,

The flames would leap, and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed

And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain · The long-lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answers back again.

:

31

$2

ASK ME NO MORE.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin :

The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

ASK ME NO MORE.

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;

But, O too fond! when have I answered thee?
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give ?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:

Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed ;
I strove against the stream, and all in vain.
Let the great river take me to the main.
No more, dear love—for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more!

ALFRED TENNYSON.

34

CRADLE SONG.

Unwritten history!

Unfathomed mystery!

Yet he chuckles, and crows, and nods, and winks,
As if his head were as full of kinks
And curious riddles as any sphinx!
Warped by colic, and wet by tears,
Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,
Our little nephew will lose two years;
And he'll never know

Where the Summers go:

He need not laugh, for he'll find it so!

Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day?

Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony;

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls:

Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide!
What does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof, that flies
Forward and backward through the air?

What does he think of his mother's breast,

Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,