orm, and ebb, and flow,
And many purest pearl-gems
Within its dim depth glow.

4[31]

My child, we were two children,
Small, merry by childhood's law;
We used to creep to the henhouse,
And hide ourselves in the straw.

We crowed like cocks, and whenever
The passers near us drew--
"Cock-a-doodle!" They thought
'Twas a real cock that crew.

The boxes about our courtyard
We carpeted to our mind,
And lived there both together--
Kept house in a noble kind.

The neighbor's old cat often
Came to pay us a visit;
We made her a bow and courtesy,
Each with a compliment in it.

After her health we asked,
Our care and regard to evince--
(We have made the very same speeches
To many an old cat since).

We also sat and wisely
Discoursed, as old folks do,
Complaining how all went better
In those good old times we knew--

How love, and truth, and believing
Had left the world to itself,
And how so dear was the coffee,
And how so rare was the pelf.

The children's games are over,
The rest is over with youth--
The world, the good games, the good times,
The belief, and the love, and the truth.

5[32]

E'en as a lovely flower,
So fair, so pure thou art;
I gaze on thee, and sadness
Comes stealing o'er my heart.

My hands I fain had folded
Upon thy soft brown hair,
Praying that God may keep thee
So lovely, pure, and fair.

6[33]

I would that my love and its sadness
Might a single word convey,
The joyous breezes should bear it,
And merrily waft it away.

They should waft it to thee, beloved,
This soft and wailful word,
At every hour thou shouldst hear it,
Where'er thou art 'twould be heard.

And when in the night's first slumber
Thine eyes scarce closing seem,
Still should my word pursue thee
Into thy deepest dream.

7[34]

The shades of the summer evening lie
On the forest and meadows green;
The golden moon shines in the azure sky
Through balm-breathing air serene.

The cricket is chirping the brooklet near,
In the water a something stirs,
And the wanderer can in the stillness hear
A plash and a sigh through the furze.

There all by herself the fairy bright
Is bathing down in the stream;
Her arms and throat, bewitching and white,
In the moonshine glance and gleam.

8[35]

I know not what evi