own in anger
On the wildering show;
Freezing follows change-frost--
Love heaps ice and snow!
Then the fevered radiance
Fades from life's doomed tree;
Wilted, withered, drifting,
Bud, bloom, leaves we see.

Love looks down upon them,
Wonders how it came--
Thinks through all his changing
They should bloom the same:
Did not know his change-frost
Had the power to kill;
Did not deem his frowning
Life's quick pulse could still!

Gone the fickle sunshine!
Gone the rosy hours!
Gone love's early wooing!
Gone the healthful powers!
Come and cool the hectic,
Chill the fevered glow,
Pale the crimson flushing,
Death, beneath thy snow!

ACROSS MAINE IN MID-WINTER.

A journey by stage coach in these days, when railroads are fast
penetrating to the remotest corners of our country, has already become a
somewhat novel experience. In the course of comparatively few years,
even the 'air line' will have given place to an international railway,
connecting us immediately with New Brunswick, and the stage coaches of
this region will be among the reminiscences of the past.

The circumstances under which this journey of mine was performed were
most painful. Still, through that remarkable power of the human mind,
which seems to act independently of volition, that mysterious duality of
being which observes, discriminates, and remembers, while at the same
time preoccupied by an overwhelming grief, I was enabled to note each
little incident with more than usual intensity.

Was it that they stood out in bolder, more sharply cut relief, because
of the dark background of emotion behind?

There had been little, if any, snow on the island all the winter, and
the morning of the 26th of January was bright and mild as April. Indeed,
it was difficult to imagine it winter.

'Come, Fred,' said I to my second little boy, 'We must take a walk to
the batteries this fine morning.'

As I stood upon the height, while the little fellow frisked about among
the rocks, I stretched my eyes westward toward the hills and forests of
the mainland, and thought of my father and mother, and of the letter
which I almost knew was on its way to me then. Ah! little did I dream
that at that very moment the gaunt sentinels of the telegraph were
tossing from one to another, with lightning speed, a message of woe for
me. Its long journey of fo