ALF covered with last year's leaves, She peeped from her russet bed;

 The great bare branches of the trees Were tossed and swayed overhead;

The hedge looked barren and prickly, Without the sign of a leaf; Over the flower there bowed a heart Grown cold with the snows of grief.

     The violet's fragile petals Enfolded a heart of gold, And a deeper wealth of perfume, Than the tiny cup could hold; So the great wind roaring above Sent a tiny zephyr down, To drift aside the sheltering bloom, And bereave her of her crown.  

It stole the familiar scent, To give to the burdened heart With only a cold north wind In the world to take its part; The flower died in the bleak March air, And the heart went on its way; The violet's life was blooming there, And melting the snows away. Caris Brooke.  

Yet nature holds a gracious hand, Her ancient ways pursuing; And spreads the charms we loved of old, To aid the heart's renewing.

Here her long crests of fringèd crag Allure the skyward swallows; Here the still dove's low love-note floats Above her leafy hollows.

   Here its calm strength her hillside rears, From heaving slopes of clover; Here still the pewit pipes and flits Within his furzy cover.

   Here hums the wild-bee in the thyme, Here glows the royal heather; And youth comes back upon the breeze, And youth's unclouded weather.

      F.T. Palgrave.

VII.

    AN APPEAL. Dear, do not die! Of cypresses and grassy graves sing I--   I hang with wreaths of song death's grief-grown cross, And weep, to music, for Life's infinite loss, And make the sweetest verse of bitterest woe,   --I know the way because I love you so; But I have written griefs that I have known In other's heart's blood, never in my own. If you died what more could be sung or said? I could not sing of Death if you were dead.

  Dear, do not love! Do not love me, keep still aloof, above! While you and Love in far-off glory stand Clear sounds the voice, and harp responds to hand. But if you loved me--if you came 

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