--
In sunlight, clustering thick below,
Sighed for the firwood's shaded ledge,
Where sparkled yet a line of snow.

And crowded snowdrops faintly hung
Their fair heads lower for the heat,
While in still air all branches flung
Their shadowy doubles at our feet.

And through the hedge the sunbeams crept,
Dropped through the maple and the birch;
And lost in airy distance slept
On the broad tower of Tamworth Church.

Then, lingering on the downward way,
A little space we resting stood,
To watch the golden haze that lay
Adown that river by the wood.

A distance vague, the bloom of sleep
The constant sun had lent the scene,
A veiling charm on dingles deep
Lay soft those pastoral hills between.

There are some days that die not out,
Nor alter by reflection's power,
Whose converse calm, whose words devout,
For ever rest, the spirit's dower.

And they are days when drops a veil--
A mist upon the distance past;
And while we say to peace--"All hail!"
We hope that always it shall last.

Times when the troubles of the heart
Are hushed--as winds were hushed that day--
And budding hopes begin to start,
Like those green hedgerows on our way:

When all within and all around
Like hues on that sweet landscape blend,
And Nature's hand has made to sound
The heartstrings that her touch attend:

When there are rays within, like those
That streamed through maple and through birch,
And rested in such calm repose
On the broad tower of Tamworth Church.

NOT IN VAIN I WAITED.

She was but a child, a child,
And I a man grown;
Sweet she was, and fresh, and wild,
And, I thought, my own.
What could I do? The long grass groweth,
The long wave floweth with a murmur on:
The why and the wherefore of it all who knoweth?
Ere I thought to lose her she was grown--and gone.
This day or that day in warm spring weather.
The lamb that was tame will yearn to break its tether.
"But if the world wound thee," I said, "come back to me,
Down in the dell wishing--wishing, wishing for thee."

The dews hang on the white may,
Like a ghost it stands,
All in the dusk before day
That folds the dim lands:

Dark fell the skies when once belated,
Sad, and sorrow-fated, I missed the sun;
But wake, heart, and sing, for not in vain I waited.
O clear, O solemn dawning, lo, the maid is won!
Sweet dews, dry early on the grass and clover,
Lest the bride w