The little stars sat one by one
Each on his golden throne;
The evening air pass'd by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirr'd,--
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

Fast silent tears were flowing,
When some one stood behind;
A hand was on my shoulder,
I knew its touch was kind:
It drew me nearer, nearer;
We did not speak a word,--
For the beating of our own hearts
Was all the sound we heard.

THE LONG-AGO

ON that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high:
Sorrows that are sorrows still
Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill
In the griefs of Long-ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,
Ghastly tenements of tears,
Wear the look of happy shrines
Through the golden mist of years
Death, to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow;
Oh! we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-ago!

Though the doom of swift decay
Shocks the soul where life is strong,
Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and overlong--
Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its heaven,
And the past its Long-ago.

_REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY_

THE SANDS OF DEE

'OH, Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee.'
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

'Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair--
A tress of golden hair,
A drowned maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea?'
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes of Dee.

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee.

THREE FISHERS

THREE fishers went sailing out into the west,
Out into the west, as the sun went down,
Each thought of the woman who loved him best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbour-bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And they trimmed the lamps as the sun we