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THE SURPRISE.

Joy met Sorrow in a place
Where the branches interlace,
Very secret, still, and sweet,
Safe from all profaning feet.

"Why art here?" Joy, startled, cried;

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Why art here?”

gray Sorrow sighed.

"I came here to weep," said Joy.
"Tears are ever my employ,"
Murmured Sorrow. "Yet I see
Tears as grateful were to thee.
Come, young novice, and be taught
How to ease thy heart o'erfraught."

Joy sat down at Sorrow's feet,
And was taught a lesson sweet.
Fain would he make kind return:
"Sorrow, art too old to learn?

Nay? Then tarry yet a while,
Till I've taught thee how to smile!"

Since that hour the two have been

Bound as by mysterious kin;

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THE SURPRISE.

Since that hour they so exchange
Tears and smiles, 't is nothing strange
If sometimes a puzzled heart
Scarce can tell the twain apart.

A HUMMING-BIRD.

SOMEWHERE I've seen thee, strange sprite,
Somewhere I've known thee ere now,

Among the wild broods of the night
That nest on the Morphean bough!

Thou with a silent throat

Dost busily rifle all blooms;
O flitter-winged bandit, thy note

Is the bee's song shed from thy plumes!

Whisper those things in my ear,
That thou art so ready to tell
To creatures too heedless to hear,
The lily, the foxglove's bell!

Aha! is it so? By these eyes,

Prospero's servant I see,

Ariel clad in the guise

Of a humming-bird lightsome and free!

THE WRECKER.

OUT, out, ye gnashing, hungry pack,
And scour the desert salt and wide!
But what ye take bring straightway back,
And toss it hither up the tide.

From main to main ye coursing go,
Ye bring the deep-hulled ships to bay;
And then returned with sure reflow,
Your captures on the beach ye lay.

Is it Iberian grapes ye bring,

Or slender length of Indian cane?
Or is it some old sovereign's ring
That long in secret gulfs hath lain?

Ye will not bring me these to-day?
Then cast me here upon the shore
A mast the storm hath shorn away,
A rudder, or a broken oar.

I build my boat, a fisher's smack;
I build it well, ye seamen gone,

With what the waves have yielded back,

The timbers from your vessels drawn.

I build

THE WRECKER.

my house on seaboard ground,

I build it well with far-brought trees;

With blanchèd drift made smooth and round
By the swift lathe of circling seas.

To whom should I a salvage pay?

Το you who drank the mortal deep,

Whose craving hands reach through the spray,
Whose voices sound within my sleep!

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