My half day’s work is done,
  And this is all my part;
  I give a patient God
      My patient heart,

  And grasp His banner still,
  Though all its blue be dim;
  These stripes, no less than stars,
      Lead after Him.

M.W.  HOWLAND.

Under the Violets.

  Her hands are cold; her face is white;
    No more her pulses come and go;
  Her eyes are shut to life and light;—­
    Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
    And lay her where the violets blow.

  But not beneath a graven stone,
    To plead for tears with alien eyes;
  A slender cross of wood alone
    Shall say, that here a maiden lies
    In peace beneath the peaceful skies.

  And gray old trees of hugest limb
    Shall wheel their circling shadows round
  To make the scorching sunlight dim
    That drinks the greenness from the ground,
    And drop their dead leaves on her mound.

  When o’er their boughs the squirrels run,
    And through their leaves the robins call,
  And, ripening in the autumn sun,
    The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
    Doubt not that she will heed them all.

  For her the morning choir shall sing
    Its matins from the branches high,
  And every minstrel voice of Spring,
    That trills beneath the April sky,
    Shall greet her with its earliest cry.

  When, turning round their dial-track,
    Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
  Her little mourners, clad in black,
    The crickets, sliding through the grass,
    Shall pipe for her an evening mass.

  At last the rootlets of the trees
    Shall find the prison where she lies,
  And bear the buried dust they seize
    In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
    So may the soul that warmed it rise!

  If any, born of kindlier blood,
    Should ask, What maiden lies below? 
  Say only this:  A tender bud,
    That tried to blossom in the snow,
    Lies withered where the violets blow.

O.W.  HOLMES.

Days.

  Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
  Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
  And marching single in an endless file,
  Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
  To each they offer gifts after his will,
  Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. 
  I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
  Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
  Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
  Turned and departed silent.  I, too late,
  Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

R.W.  EMERSON.

Song.[2]

  You know the old Hidalgo
    (His box is next to ours),
  Who threw the Prima Donna
    The wreath of orange-flowers;
  He owns the half of Aragon,
    With mines beyond the main;
  A very ancient nobleman,
    And gentleman of Spain.