Yet every spring millions of flowers have birth,
  And every autumn brings its fruits and sheaves;
But when the fruit and grain make glad the earth,
  Dead are the flowers, and falling are the leaves. 
Though all our lives we see our dear dreams die,—­
  Each noble dream brings fruit.  It may not be
The fruit we hoped it would be followed by,
  But the fruit lasts to all eternity.

No seed is lost—­in earth’s brown bosom cast;
  No deed is lost—­of all the deeds we do;
Each grows to fruit—­is harvested at last,
  Haply in shape undreamed of, fair, and new. 
And, though we die before the end be won,
  Our deeds live on; and other men will cry,
Seeing the end of what we have begun,
  “Still lives the fruit for which the flowers had to die!”

E.  Nesbit.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XIII.

Birds, joyous birds, of the wandering wing! 
Whence is it ye come with the flowers of Spring? 
“We come from the shores of the green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile,
And each worn wing hath regained its home
Under peasants’ roof-trees or monarch’s dome.”

And what have ye found in the monarch’s dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea’s foam? 
“We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o’ershadowing the banquet’s hall,
And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt,—­
Naught looks the same, save the nest we built.”

 [Illustration]

O joyous birds! it hath still been so;
Through the halls of kings doth the tempest go! 
But the huts of the hamlet lie still and deep,
And the hills o’er their quiet a vigil keep: 
Say, what have ye found in the peasant’s cot,
Since last ye parted from that sweet spot?—­

“A change we have found there—­and many a change! 
Faces and footsteps, and all things strange! 
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,
And the young that were, have a brow of care. 
And the place is hushed where the children played—­
Naught looks the same, save the nest we made.”

F.  Hemans.

[Illustration:  THE END.]

[Illustration]