Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 137.pdf/269



WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN.

Have you forgotten, little wife,
Our far-off childhood's golden life?
Our splendid castles on the sands,
The boat I made with my own hands,

The rain that caught us in the wood,
The cakes we had when we were good,
The doll I broke and made you cry,
When we were children, you and I?

Have you forgotten, little wife,
The dawning of that other life?
The strange new light the whole world wore,
When life love's perfect blossom bore?

The dreams we had, the songs we made,
The sunshine, and the woven shade,
The tears of many a sad good-bye,
When we were parted, you and I?

Ah, nay! your loving heart, I know,
Remembers still the long-ago;
It is the light of childhood's days
That shines through all your winning ways.

God grant we ne'er forget our youth,
Its innocence, and faith, and truth;
The smiles, the tears, and hopes gone by,
When we were children, you and I.

Cassell's Magazine.
Frederick E. Weatherly.

---

IRISH SONG.

On Innisfallen's fairy isle,
⁠Amid the blooming bushes,
We leant upon the lovers' stile,
⁠And listened to the thrushes;
When first I sighed to see her smile,
⁠And smiled to see her blushes.

Her hair was bright as beaten gold,
⁠And soft as spider's spinning,
Her cheek outbloomed the apple old
⁠That set our parents sinning,
And in her eyes you might behold
⁠My joys and griefs beginning.

In Innisfallen's fairy grove
⁠I hushed my happy wooing,
To listen to the brooding dove
⁠Amid the branches cooing;
But oh! how short those hours of love,
⁠How long their bitter rueing!

Poor cushat! thy complaining breast
⁠With woe like mine is heaving.
With thee I mourn a fruitless quest;
⁠For ah! with art deceiving
The cuckoo-bird has robbed my nest,
⁠And left me wildly grieving.

Spectator.
The Author of "Songs of Killarney."

---

LOVE'S CALENDAR.

A young year's freshness in the air,
⁠A spring-tide color to the wood;
The flowers in spring-time most are fair,
⁠And life in spring-time most is good;
For why? - I will not let you hear
⁠Until the summer is a-near.

A summer all of burning lights
⁠With crimson roses, passion red,
And moonlight for the hot, white nights,
⁠And jasmine flowers, sweet, dew-fed.
Why has each rose a double scent?
⁠You may divine when it is spent.

Autumn with shining yellow sheaves,
⁠And garnered fruit; and half regret
To watch the dreary falling leaves
⁠And eaden skies above them set;
And why e'en autumn can seem dear
⁠Perchance you'll guess, when winter's here.

Winter, in wide, snow-covered plains,
⁠And drifting sleet, and piercing wind,
That chills the blood within our veins,
⁠But our warm hearts can never find -
Ah, little love, you guess, I know,
⁠What warms our hearts in spite of snow.

Argosy.E. Nesbit.

---

"LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT."^[1]

Duc alma Lux, circumstat umbra mundi,
⁠Duc, alma Lux;
Est atra nox, mei jam vagabundi
⁠Sis ergo dux:
Serva pedes, - non cupio longinqua
Videre; satis semita propinqua.

Non semper eram, ut nunc, doctus precari
⁠Ductorem te, -
Magis me exploratorem gloriari:
⁠Duc tamen me.
Præclara amabam, neque expers timorum
Regebam me: sis immemor actorum.

Tam diu præsens adfuit vocanti
⁠Divina vox.
Sic erit vel per ima dubitanti
⁠Dum fugit nox,
Et manè lucent nitidæ figuræ,
Notæ per annos, paullulum obscuræ.

Translated at sea, December, 1877.C. S. O.
Spectator.

1. This bold attempt to render Dr. Newman's hymn
   in rhymed Latin stanzas, of the same number and the
   same number of lines as in the English original, is sent
   home to the translator's friends as the recreation of
   nights at sea by an English scholar on his way to the
   antipodes. Any old Oxford friends who may recognize
   the initials will feel the point and pathos added by
   the fact that news of the unlooked-for loss of a truly
   "nitida figura, nota per annos," which has darkened
   his home since he left it, is following him round the
   world. - J. O.