All day we have plied the oar; all day Eager and keen have said our say On life and death, on love and art, On good or ill at Nature’s heart. Now, grown so tired, we scarce can lift The lazy oars, but onward drift. And the silence is only stirred Here and there by a broken word. * * * * * O, sweeter far than strain and stress Is the slow, creeping weariness. And better far than thought I find The drowsy blankness of the mind. More than all joys of soul or sense Is this divine indifference; Where grief a shadow grows to be, And peace a possibility. [Illustration: ODDS & ENDS] Odds and Ends. _A Wall Flower._ _I lounge in the doorway and languish in vain_ _While Tom, Dick and Harry are dancing with Jane_ My spirit rises to the music’s beat; There is a leaden fiend lurks in my feet! To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet. Somewhere, I think, some other where, not here, In other ages, on another sphere, I danced with you, and you with me, my dear. In perfect motion did our bodies sway, To perfect music that was heard alway; Woe’s me, that am so dull of foot to-day! To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet; My spirit rises to the music’s beat-- But, ah, the leaden demon in my feet! _The First Extra._ A WALTZ SONG. O sway, and swing, and sway, And swing, and sway, and swing! Ah me, what bliss like unto this, Can days and daylight bring? A rose beneath your feet Has fallen from my head; Its odour rises sweet, All crushed it lies, and dead. O Love is like a rose, Fair-hued, of fragrant breath; A tender flow’r that lives an hour, And is most sweet in death. O swing, and sway, and swing, And rise, and sink, and fall! There is no bliss like unto this, This is the best of all. _At a Dinner Party._ [Illustration: text decoration] With fruit and flowers the board is deckt, The wine and laughter flow; I’ll not complain--could one expect So dull a world to know? You look across the fruit and flowers, My glance your glances find.-- It is our secret, only ours, Since all the world is blind. _Philosophy._ [Illustration: text decoration] Ere all the world had grown so drear, When I was young and you were here, ’Mid summer roses in summer weather, What pleasant times we’ve had together! We were not Phyllis, simple-sweet, And Corydon; we did not meet By brook or meadow, but among A Philistine and flippant throng Which much we scorned; (less rigorous It had no scorn at all for us!) How many an eve of sweet July, Heedless of Mrs. Grundy’s eye,