THE RETURN.
BY MISS L. E. LANDON.
Nantz is a fair city, but it seemed the very fairest in the world to the traveller, for he had been absent years: he left it poor, but he came back rich; and the home of his youth was again to be the home of his age.
"Drop down your oars, the waters trace
Their own path fast enough for me;
Life sometimes asks a breathing space—
Such I am fain this hour should be.
"Fair city, I am come once more;
Travel and toil are on my brow;
With all I thought so great of yore—
With all I think so little now!
"Sorrow for friends I left behind—
Misgiving fears were with me then;
And yet I bore a lighter mind
Than now I see those walls again.
"Hope is youth's prophet, and foretells
The future that its wish reveals;
The energy that in us dwells
Then judges but by what it feels.
"And it feels buoyant spirits, health,
And confidence, and earnestness;
And it ascribes such power to wealth
Which but to seek is to possess.
T
