Wayward! when once we feel thy lack,
  ’Tis worse than vain to tempt thee back! 
  Yet there is one who seems to be
  Thine elder sister, in whose eyes
  A faint, far northern light will rise
  Sometimes and bring a dream of thee: 
  She is not that for which youth hoped;
  But she hath blessings all her own,
  Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped,
  And faith to sorrow given alone: 
  Almost I deem that it is thou
  Come back with graver matron brow,
  With deepened eyes and bated breath,
  Like one who somewhere had met Death. 
  “But no,” she answers, “I am she
  Whom the gods love, Tranquillity;
  That other whom you seek forlorn. 
  Half-earthly was; but I am born
  Of the immortals, and our race
  Have still some sadness in our face: 
  He wins me late, but keeps me long,
  Who, dowered with every gift of passion,
  In that fierce flame can forge and fashion
  Of sin and self the anchor strong;
  Can thence compel the driving force
  Of daily life’s mechanic course,
  Nor less the nobler energies
  Of needful toil and culture wise: 
  Whose soul is worth the tempter’s lure,
  Who can renounce and yet endure,
  To him I come, not lightly wooed,
  And won by silent fortitude.”

* * * * *

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Florence, July 5th, 1861.

  “When some beloved voice that was to you
  Both sound and sweetness faileth suddenly,
  And silence, against which you dare not cry,
  Aches round you like a strong disease and new,—­
  What hope? what help? what music will undo
  That silence to your sense?  Not friendship’s sigh,—­
  Not reason’s subtle count,—­not melody
  Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew,—­
  Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
  Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
  To the clear moon,—­nor yet the spheric laws
  Self-chanted,—­nor the angels’ sweet All-hails,
  Met in the smile of God.  Nay, none of these! 
  Speak THOU, availing Christ, and fill this pause!”

Thus sang the Muse of a great woman years ago; and now, alas! she, who, with constant suffering of her own, was called upon to grieve often for the loss of near and dear ones, has suddenly gone from among us, “and silence, against which we dare not cry, aches round us like a strong disease and new.”  Her own beautiful words are our words, the world’s words,—­and though the tears fall faster and thicker, as we search for all that is left of her in the noble poems which she bequeaths to humanity, there follows the sad consolation in feeling assured that she above all others felt the full value of life, the full value of death, and was prepared to meet her God humbly, yet joyfully, whenever He should claim her for His own.  Her life was one long, large-souled, large-hearted prayer for the triumph of Right, Justice, Liberty; and she who lived for others was