BENEATH THE CHESTNUTS.

51

BENEATH THE CHESTNUTS.

H, those chestnut alleys,

With their flowers of white and red,

And the sweet, sweet words of early love That under them were said!

Oh, the sweet songs of thrushes

In the sweetbriar hedge hard by,

And the brook's song in the rushes,
And the skylark's in the sky!

Now all is changed, or changing,
Hush'd is the skylark's song,

And the brook crawls 'neath its load of ice,
And the winter nights are long.

The thrush and his mate are starving
As they cling to the frozen spray,

And the sweetbriar hedge no longer is sweet,
And my Love lies 'neath the clay.

PARTING SONG.

HE hour has come, and we must part,
The bell has toll'd and we must sever;

Come hour, strike bell, my steadfast heart

Is bound to thee, sweet Love, for ever.

The hour has come, and we must part :
I o'er the salt sea waves must roam;
Though ocean roll between, take heart,
Sweet Love, thou art my only home.

Thou art my home, and unto thee
My every thought will ever turn,

Thou art my home,—no stormy sea

Can quench the love with which I burn.

The hour is come, and we must part,

The bell has struck our parting knell ;

Thou know'st me true: sweet Love, take heart,— One parting kiss, and then farewell.

BRAVE ROBIN.

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BRAVE ROBIN.

ROBIN sate perch'd on a frozen spray;
Cold was the wind and dark was the day;

When colder it grew he 'gan merrily sing, With his quivering throat and his shivering wing.

And under the eaves of a cot hard by

Sate his little brown mate with her quick black eye;

And she turn'd her little brown head to hear

What the red-breasted Robin sang in her ear.

He merrily sang, and for her alone

True love thrill'd in his every tone;

He sang till the icicles dropt from the tree,-
Sure ne'er so warm-hearted a bird as he.

"O Robin, brave Robin, tell why do you sing,
With quivering throat and shivering wing?"
"I love my little brown mate so well,

My voice, like my heart, for her must swell.

"For songs of true love I care not to choose The soft, warm days when the cushat coos,

But to joy my love's heart I sing her love's lay, When the winds are cold, from my frozen spray."

THOSE LOVELY, BLOOMING LINDENS. 55

THOSE LOVELY, BLOOMING LINDENS.

HOSE lovely, blooming lindens,

With the chequer'd light below,

Where, hand in hand, we often stray'd

Full twenty years ago!

Those lovely, blooming lindens,

With their odour fresh and sweet,

And the humming bees above us,
And the shadows at our feet!

How often! oh, how often!

In those long twenty years,

Have those shadows seem'd fit emblems

Of our mingled hopes and fears:

Of the mingled good and evil,

Of the mingled weal and woe,

That we have seen together

Since twenty years ago!