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See how the level rays

Through the white garments pour
Of the holy child, who stands,
With bending brow, to implore
Grace on the toilers' store;
O, see those sinless hands!
Behold, the Christ-child prays!

Wait, wait, ye lingering rays,
Stand still, O Earth and Sun,
Draw near, thou Soul of God-
This is the suffering one!
Already the way is begun

The pierced Savior trod;
And now the Christ-child prays,
The holy Christ-child prays.

A CHILD

HER voice was like the song of birds;
Her eyes were like the stars;
Her little waving hands were like
Bird's wings that beat the bars.

And when those waving hands were still,
Her soul had fled away,

The music faded from the air,

The color from the day.

TWO VALLEYS

YES, 't is a glorious sight,

This valley, that mountain hight.

The river plunges and roars
Like the loud sea on its shores

WASHINGTON SQUARE

What time in waves enorm
Breaks the gigantic storm.

The wooded mount doth climb
To a thought intense, sublime.

The glory of all I feel;

But my heart, my heart, will steal

Down the journey of years,

Through the lands of laughter and tears,

Far back to the least of valleys

Where a slow brook curves and dallies,

Where a boy, in the twilight gleam,
Walks alone with his dream.

ON THE BAY

THIS watery vague how vast! This misty globe,
Seen from this center where the ferry plies,-
It plies, but seems to poise in middle air,-
Soft gray below gray heavens, and in the west
A rose-gray memory of the sunken sun;
And, where gray water touches grayer sky,
A band of darker gray prickt out with lights
A diamond-twinkling circlet bounding all;
And where the statue looms, a quenchless star;
And where the lighthouse, a red, pulsing flame;
While the great bridge its starry diadem
Lifts through the gray, itself in grayness lost!

WASHINGTON SQUARE

THIS is the end of the town that I love the best.
O, lovely the hour of light from the burning west

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Of light that lingers and fades in the shadowy square Where the solemn fountain lifts a shaft in the air

To catch the skyey colors, and fling them down

In a wild-wood torrent that drowns the noise of the town.

And lovely the hour of the still and dreamy night
When, lifted against the blue, stands the arch of white
With one clear planet above; and the sickle moon,
In curve reversed from the arch's marble round,
Silvers the sapphire sky. Now soon, ah, soon,
Shall the city square be turned to holy ground,

Through the light of the moon and the stars and the glowing flower,—

The Cross of Light,- that looms from the sacred tower.

THE CITY

O, DEAR is the song of the pine

When the wind of the night-time blows,

And dear is the murmuring river

That afar through my childhood flows;

And soft is the raindrop's beat

And the fountain's lyric play,

But to me no music is half so sweet
As the thunder of Broadway!

Stream of the living world

Where dash the billows of strife!

One plunge in the mighty torrent

Is a year of tamer life!

City of glorious days,

Of hope, and labor, and mirth,

With room, and to spare, on thy splendid bays

For the ships of all the earth!

A RHYME OF TYRINGHAM

A RHYME OF TYRINGHAM

Down in the meadow and up on the hight
The breezes are blowing the willows white.
In the elms and maples the robins call,
And the great black crow sails over all

In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.

The river winds through the trees and the brake
And the meadow-grass like a shining snake;
And low in the summer and loud in the spring
The rapids and reaches murmur and sing

In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.

In the shadowy pools the trout are shy,
So creep to the bank and cast the fly!

What thrills and tremors the tense cords stir
When the trout it strikes with a tug and a whir
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley!

At dark of the day the mist spreads white,
Like a magic lake in the glimmering light;

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Or the winds from the meadow the white mists blow, And the fireflies glitter, a sky below,―

In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.

And O, in the windy days of the fall

The maples and elms are scarlet all,

And the world that was green is gold and red,
And with huskings and cider they 're late to bed
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.

Now squirrel and partridge and hawk and hare
And wildcat and woodchuck and fox beware!

The three days' hunt is waxing warm

For the Count Up Dinner at Riverside Farm
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.

The meadow-ice will be freezing soon,

And then for a skate by the light of the moon.
So pile the wood on the hearth, my boy!
Winter is coming! I wish you joy

By the light of the hearth and the moon, my boy,
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.

ELSIE

"Do you love me?" Elsie asked,
And her rose-leaf dimples masked
'Neath a pleading look, the while
On her pouting lips a smile
Hovered, yet was out of sight
Like a star that's hid at night
By a filmy, flying cloud.

"Do you love me?" scarce aloud
Lovely Cousin Elsie said.
"Why no answer, Cousin Ed?
Do you hate me, then, or why
From Your Highness no reply?"
So the chiding witch ran on:
"In a moment I'll be gone;
Then too late, Sir No Gallant!
Quick! I'll tell my precious aunt
That you love me not," she cries,
"That you hate me and despise."
Flash the great, gray, long-lashed eyes;
Half in earnest now the girl;
Down the pretty corners curl

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