strength to part.

Some of your lovers may be half afraid
To bid you forth, for fear of pitfalls laid
About your feet; but we have no such fears,
That cry is as a trumpet in our ears;
We dare not, would not, mock those summoning fates--
Stage waits!

Stage waits! and shall you fear and make delay?
Yes! when the mariner who long time lay,
Waiting the breeze, shall anchor when it blows;
Yes! when a thirsty summer-flower shall close
Against the rain; or when, in reaping days,
The husbandman shall set his fields ablaze.

Nay, take your breeze, drink in your strengthening rain,
And, while you can, make harvest of your grain;
The land is fair to which that breeze shall blow.
The flower is sweet the rain shall set aglow,
The grain be rich within your garner gates--
Stage waits!

Stage waits! and we must loosen now your hand,
And miss your face's gold in all our land;
But yet we know that in a little while
You come again a conqueror, so smile
Godspeed, not parting, and, with hearts elate,
We wait_.

Yes, for the second time the die was cast. Henry was already afoot on
the adventure perilous. Now it was Mike's turn. These young people had
passionately invoked those terrible gods who fulfil our dreams, and
already the celestial machinery was beginning to move in answer. Perhaps
it just a little took their breath, to see the great wheels so readily
turning at the touch of their young hands; but they were in for it now,
and with stout hearts must abide the issue.

This was to be Esther and Mike's first experience of parting, and their
hearts sickened at the thought. Love surely does well in this world, so
full of snares and dangers, to fear to lose from its eyes for a moment
the face of its beloved; and in this respect the courage of love is the
more remarkable. How bravely it takes the appalling risks of life! To
separate for an hour may mean that never as long as the world lasts will
love hear the voice it loves again. "Good-bye," love has called gaily so
often, and waved hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called
"good-bye" and waved, and smiled back--for the last time. And yet love
faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and
months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with un