t seems dim on the mountain yonder,
When I think of the garden I left behind.
Should I stand at last on its summit's splendor,
I know full well it would not repay
For the fair lost tints of the dawn so tender
That crept up over the edge o' day.

I would go back, but the ways are winding,
If ways there are to that land, in sooth,
For what man succeeds in ever finding
A path to the garden of his lost youth?
But I think sometimes, when the June stars glisten,
That a rose scent dufts from far away,
And I know, when I lean from the cliffs and listen,
That a young laugh breaks on the air like spray.

ART AND HEART.

Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,
It is not art, but _heart_, which wins the wide world over.

Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it,
And the finest phrase falls dead if there is no feeling behind it.

Though perfect the player's touch, little, if any, he sways us,
Unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.

Though the poet may spend his life in skilfully rounding a measure,
Unless he writes from a full, warm heart he gives us little pleasure.

So it is not the speech which tells, but the impulse which goes
with the saying;
And it is not the words of the prayer, but the yearning back of
the praying.

It is not the artist's skill which into our soul comes stealing
With a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player's feeling.

And it is not the poet's song, though sweeter than sweet bells chiming,
Which thrills us through and through, but the heart which beats under
the rhyming.

And therefore I say again, though I am art's own true lover,
That it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.

[Illustration: RECOLLECTIONS]

MOCKERY.

Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living
Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall,
And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving
Unto the dead our all?

Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,
With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,
And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,
Speak of its woe through tears?

What do the dead care, for the tender token--
The love, the praise, the floral off