252

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though un-
spoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her; For when with raptures wild

She will not be a child:

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion Shall we behold her face.

And though, at times, impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the

ocean,

That cannot be at rest,

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing
The grief that must have way.

UT Enoch yearned to see her face again;

If I might look on her sweet face again

the thought

Haunted and harassed him and drove

him forth

At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.
There he sat down gazing on all below:
There did a thousand memories roll upon him,
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by
The ruddy square of comfortable light,
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house,
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strike
Against it, and beats out his weary life.

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, The latest house to landward; but behind, With one small gate that opened on the waste, Flourished a little garden square and walled:

That which he better might have shunned, if

griefs

Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

and silver on the burnished board

For
cups
Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth;
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,
A later but a loftier Annie Lee,
Fair-haired and tall, and from her lifted
hand

Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring
To tempt the babe, who reared his creasy

arms,

Caught at and ever missed it, and they laughed :

And on the left hand of the hearth he saw

253

The mother glancing often at her babe,
But turning now and then to speak with him,
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong,
And saying that which pleased him, for he
smiled.

Now when the dead man come to life beheld

His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee,
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,
And his own children tall and beautiful,
And him, that other, reigning in his place,
Lord of his rights and of his children's love,-
Then he, though Miriam Lane had told him
all,

Because things seen are mightier than things heard,

Staggered and shook, holding the branch, and feared

To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter ali the happiness of the hearth.

He therefore turning softly like a thief, Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, And feeling all along the garden-wall, Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,

Crept to the gate, and opened it, and closed, As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door, Behind him, and came out upon the waste.

And there he would have knelt, but that

his knees

Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug His fingers into the wet earth, and prayed

255

"Suppose you try! I won't tell. You're afraid to! Oh! you're afraid they would think it mean!

Well, then, there's the album: that's pretty if

you're sure that your fingers are clean. For sister says sometimes I daub it; but she

only says that when she's cross. There's her picture. You know it? It's like

her; but she ain't good-looking, of course.

This is ME." It's the best of 'em all. Now, tell me, you'd never have thought That once I was little as that? It's the only one that could be bought; For that was the message to pa from the

photograph-man where I sat,— That he wouldn't print off any more till he first got his money for that.

"What? Maybe you're tired of waiting. Why, often she's longer than this. There's all her back hair to do up, and all her front curls to friz.