At Sundown | Page 6

Ward's pilgrim flock,
Proof that upon their century-rooted stock

The English roses bloom as fresh as ever.
Take the warm welcome of new friends with thee,
And listening to
thy home's familiar chime
Dream that thou hearest, with it keeping
time,
The bells on Merrimac sound across the sea.
Think of our thrushes, when the lark sings clear,
Of our sweet
Mayflowers when the daisies bloom;
And bear to our and thy
ancestral home
The kindly greeting of its children here.
Say that our love survives the severing strain;
That the New England,
with the Old, holds fast
The proud, fond memories of a common past;

Unbroken still the ties of blood remain!
INSCRIPTION
For the bass-relief by Preston Powers, carved upon the huge boulder in
Denver Park, Col., and representing the Last Indian and the Last Bison.
The eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown peaks,
For the wild hunter
and the bison seeks,
In the changed world below; and finds alone

Their graven semblance in the eternal stone.
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
Inscription on her Memorial Tablet in Christ Church at Hartford, Conn.
She sang alone, ere womanhood had known
The gift of song which
fills the air to-day
Tender and sweet, a music all her own
May fitly

linger where she knelt to pray.
MILTON
Inscription on the Memorial Window in St. Margaret's Church,
Westminster, the gift of George W. Childs, of America.
The new world honors him whose lofty plea
For England's freedom
made her own more sure,
Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be

Their common freehold while both worlds endure.
THE BIRTHDAY WREATH
December 17, 1891.
Blossom and greenness, making all
The winter birthday tropical,

And the plain Quaker parlors gay,
Have gone from bracket, stand,
and wall;
We saw them fade, and droop, and fall,
And laid them
tenderly away.
White virgin lilies, mignonette,
Blown rose, and pink, and violet,
A
breath of fragrance passing by;
Visions of beauty and decay,
Colors
and shapes that could not stay,
The fairest, sweetest, first to die.
But still this rustic wreath of mine,
Of acorned oak and needled pine,

And lighter growths of forest lands,
Woven and wound with
careful pains,
And tender thoughts, and prayers, remains,
As when
it dropped from love's dear hands.
And not unfitly garlanded,
Is he, who, country-born and bred,

Welcomes the sylvan ring which gives
A feeling of old summer days,

The wild delight of woodland ways,
The glory of the autumn
leaves.
And, if the flowery meed of song
To other bards may well belong,

Be his, who from the farm-field spoke
A word for Freedom when her

need
Was not of dulcimer and reed.
This Isthmian wreath of pine
and oak.
THE WIND OF MARCH.
Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky's gray
arch;
Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing
It is the
wind of March.
Between the passing and the coming season,
This stormy interlude

Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason
For trustful gratitude.
Welcome to waiting ears its harsh forewarning
Of light and warmth
to come,
The longed-for joy of Nature's Easter morning,
The earth
arisen in bloom.
In the loud tumult winter's strength is breaking;
I listen to the sound,

As to a voice of resurrection, waking
To life the dead, cold ground.
Between these gusts, to the soft lapse I hearken
Of rivulets on their
way;
I see these tossed and naked tree-tops darken
With the fresh
leaves of May.
This roar of storm, this sky so gray and lowering
Invite the airs of
Spring,
A warmer sunshine over fields of flowering,
The bluebird's
song and wing.
Closely behind, the Gulf's warm breezes follow
This northern
hurricane,
And, borne thereon, the bobolink and swallow
Shall visit
us again.
And, in green wood-paths, in the kine-fed pasture
And by the
whispering rills,
Shall flowers repeat the lesson of the Master,

Taught on his Syrian hills.
Blow, then, wild wind! thy roar shall end in singing,
Thy chill in

blossoming;
Come, like Bethesda's troubling angel, bringing
The
healing of the Spring.
BETWEEN THE GATES.
Between the gates of birth and death
An old and saintly pilgrim
passed,
With look of one who witnesseth
The long-sought goal at
last.
O thou whose reverent feet have found
The Master's footprints in thy
way,
And walked thereon as holy ground,
A boon of thee I pray.
"My lack would borrow thy excess,
My feeble faith the strength of
thine;
I need thy soul's white saintliness
To hide the stains of mine.
"The grace and favor else denied
May well be granted for thy sake."

So, tempted, doubting, sorely tried,
A younger pilgrim spake.
"Thy prayer, my son, transcends my gift;
No power is mine," the sage
replied,
"The burden of a soul to lift
Or stain of sin to hide.
"Howe'er the outward life may seem,
For pardoning grace we all
must pray;
No man his brother can redeem
Or a soul's ransom pay.
"Not always age is growth of good;
Its years have losses with their
gain;
Against some evil youth withstood
Weak hands may strive in
vain.
"With deeper voice than any speech
Of mortal lips from man to man,

What earth's unwisdom may not teach
The Spirit only can.
"Make thou that holy guide thine own,
And following where it leads
the way,
The known shall lapse in the unknown
As