[Pg 30]

WINTER HUES RECALLED.

Life is not all for effort: there are hours,

When fancy breaks from the exacting will,

And rebel thought takes schoolboy's holiday,

Rejoicing in its idle strength. 'Tis then,

And only at such moments, that we know

The treasure of hours gone—scenes once beheld,

Sweet voices and words bright and beautiful,

Impetuous deeds that woke the God within us,

The loveliness of forms and thoughts and colors,

A moment marked and then as soon forgotten.

These things are ever near us, laid away,

Hidden and waiting the appropriate times,

In the quiet garner-house of memory.

There in the silent unaccounted depth,

Beneath the heated strainage and the rush

That teem the noisy surface of the hours,

All things that ever touched us are stored up,

Growing more mellow like sealed wine with age;

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