Why vex with thoughts of dolor the peace of happy hours?"

Swift the lights and shadows where the aspens grow.

The air is thrilled with bird-notes, in the rapture of their singing;

Minor chords are sounding in the dove's plaint, soft and low;

I am drunken with the gladness that Nature's grace is bringing,

Be merry, then, O sweetheart; list the woodland chorus ringing."

Far-off bells are tolling a requiem, sad and slow. She closed her heavy eyelids, laid her head upon his shoulder;

Nevermore the dreaming of the happy long ago. "Alas! love, 'neath the flowers I see the dead leaves moulder.

I am chill, so chill and weary; has the sunny day grown colder? "

Autumn leaves are falling, as the west-winds come and go.

Plague-stricken? Yes, O lover, for the Yellow King has seized her,

Vast the realm of shadows, where no earth winds blow;

Midst the bird songs and the clover and the fresh free air he claims her.

Vainly, vainly from his power would thy frantic love withhold her,

Weep o'er sweetest flowers, killed by winter's snow. He laid her 'neath the aspens, but e'er the first gray

dawning,

Blessed the peaceful garden where God's lilies blow, Her lovely eyes half opened, and without sigh or

warning.

Her soul beyond the shadows had sprung to meet the morning.

Oh, the blissful morning which His people know! MARIE B. WILLIAMS.

HEN the hours of day are numbered,
And the voices of the night
Wake the better soul that slumbered
To a holy, calm delight,

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight

Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door,-
The beloved ones, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more:

He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,

By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!

a heart bleeds reveals hidden virtues.