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OUT OF THE PLAGUE-STRICKEN CITY.

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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.

FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS.

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!

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OW can it shine so bright,
The garish sun

That shines upon our dead!

DEAD IN NOVEMBER.

Veiled though the pitying stars of night,
No lingering ruth this morn—not one
Poor cloud to spread,

With softened touch, its brief eclipse
Upon the cold and silent lips,

The weighted eyes, the solemn rest,
The little hands upon the breast,
Where he lies-dead!

These roistering winds that toss,
In fierce-blown swirl,
The frost-plucked autumn leaves,
Rudely they sport with death and loss,
Or, sinking, mock with sobbing purl
The heart that grieves:

As joyous and as free as they,
As full of life and glee as they,
Was he, one little week ago,
Who lies in yonder room so low,
My boy! and dead!

The peevish crows o'erhead
Caw on and on;

The winter-birds chirp clear,

Mid pause in feast of berries red,

Cheery and pert, though song-mates gone,

And woods are sere;

Sun-kissed and glad the stream flows on-
Oh God! and all the world goes on
Light-hearted still, the same as when
He breathed it all the same as then,
And yet he's dead!

To-morrow-and the end!

The coffin-lid

Will close, and o'er it we

With tears and bursting hearts will bend,

And think of all forever hid,

My boy, with thee!

Thy sunny ways, thy kindling joy,

Thy mind's quick reach, my bright-eyed boy!

Thy gracious promise unfulfilled,

The high-set hopes we could but build,
All with the dead!

Oh anguish vain! There is
No plea to move

The tyrant heart of Death;

No respite, won with agonies

E'en such as Love and Grief approve,

With sobbing breath:

Not all Earth's tears the hands could stay
That dig his little grave to-day!

Pity, O Christ! our eyes unseal
To see, beyond our sad anele,
He lives, though dead!

E. HANNAFORD

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BOSOM empty of a heart of pain makes a lustreless life; but a bosom in which

a heart bleeds reveals hidden virtues.

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