While yet these tears have power to flow
  For hours for ever past away;
While yet these swelling sighs allow
  My faltering voice to breathe a lay;
While yet my hand can touch the chords,
  My tender lute, to wake thy tone;
While yet my mind no thought affords,
  But one remembered dream alone,
I ask not death, whate’er my state: 
  But when my eyes can weep no more,
    My voice is lost, my hand untrue. 
  And when my spirit’s fire is o’er,
    Nor can express the love it knew,
Come, Death, and cast thy shadows o’er my fate!

From the French of LOUISE LABE. 
Translation of LOUISE STUART COSTELLO.

WAITING.

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
  Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
  For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
  For what avails this eager pace? 
I stand amid the eternal ways,
  And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day. 
  The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
  Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone? 
  I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
  And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
  The brook that springs in yonder height;

So flows the good with equal law
  Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
  The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
  Can keep my own away from me.

JOHN BURROUGHS.

AUNT PHILLIS’S GUEST.

     ST. HELENA ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, IN 1863.

I was young and “Harry” was strong,
The summer was bursting from sky and plain,
Thrilling our blood as we bounded along,—­
When a picture flashed, and I dropped the rein.

A black sea-creek, with snaky run
Slipping through low green leagues of sedge,
An ebbing tide, and a setting sun;
A hut and a woman by the edge.

Her back was bent and her wool was gray;
The wrinkles lay close on the withered face;
Children were buried and sold away,—­
The Freedom had come to the last of a race!

She lived from a neighbor’s hominy-pot;
And praised the Lord, if “the pain” passed by;
From the earthen floor the smoke curled out
Through shingles patched with the bright blue sky.

“Aunt Phillis, you live here all alone?”
I asked, and pitied the gray old head;
Sure as a child, in quiet tone,
“Me and Jesus, Massa,” she said.

I started, for all the place was aglow
With a presence I had not seen before;
The air was full of a music low,
And the Guest Divine stood at the door!