MY ALCHEMY.

'Yes, Alchemy is false, 'tis said,
To none will it be told,

The longed-for lore, of which we've read,
That turns all things to gold.'
Yet I've the secret. Never start;
No farther need you roam
To find it, than within my heart,
That's found it in my home.

O wiser than the hungering eyes
O'er crucibles that dream,
And see, amid the bubbling ore,
A gold that does but seem;
Mine, smiling into eyes that smile
To mine, through joy and pain,
Coin untold wealth and re-create
The Golden Age again.

O love that, like the radiant sun,
Canst with a touch divine,

Bid darkness, cloud, and wintry shower,
With heaven's own lustre shine,
Thou-thou canst turn to priceless gold
Life's cares, and griefs, and fears,
In eyes that look thy sumless wealth
To mine through mists of tears.

Be with us, Alchemist most sage,
Whose prophecies are truth,

Be with us through the hours of age,
As through the days of youth;
Coin thou to gold, while life endures,
Our every happy breath,

And gild, for us and all, the world

We darkly see through death.

BABY MAY AND OTHER POEMS.

BABY MAY.

CHEEKS as soft as July peaches,
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches
Poppies paleness-round large eyes
Ever great with new surprise,
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness,
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness,
Happy smiles and wailing cries,
Crows and laughs and tearful eyes,
Lights and shadows swifter born
Than on wind-swept Autumn corn,
Ever some new tiny notion
Making every limb all motion-
Catchings up of legs and arms,
Throwings back and small alarms,
Clutching fingers-straightening jerks,
Twining feet whose each toe works,
Kickings up and straining risings,
Mother's ever new surprisings,

Hands all wants and looks all wonder
At all things the heavens under,
Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings
That have more of love than lovings,
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness, that we prize such sinning,
Breakings dire of plates and glasses,
Graspings small at all that passes,
Pullings off of all that's able
To be caught from tray or table;
Silences-small meditations,

Deep as thoughts of cares for nations,
Breaking into wisest speeches
In a tongue that nothing teaches,
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing;

Slumbers-such sweet angel-seemings,
That we'd ever have such dreamings,
Till from sleep we see thee breaking,
And we'd always have thee waking;
Wealth for which we know no measure,
Pleasure high above all pleasure,
Gladness brimming over gladness,
Joy in care-delight in sadness,
Loveliness beyond completeness,
Sweetness distancing all sweetness,
Beauty all that beauty may be-
That's May Bennett, that's my baby.

BABY'S SHOES.

O THOSE little, those little blue shoes!
Those shoes that no little feet use!
O the price were high

That those shoes would buy,
Those little blue unused shoes!

For they hold the small shape of feet That no more their mother's eyes meet, That by God's good will,

Years since grew still,

And ceased from their totter so sweet!

And O, since that baby slept,
So hush'd! how the mother has kept,
With a tearful pleasure,

That little dear treasure,

And o'er them thought and wept!

For they mind her for evermore

Of a patter along the floor,
And blue eyes she sees

Look up from her knees,

With the look that in life they wore.