Here, where your garden fenced about and still is, Here, where the unmoved summer air is sweet With mixed delight of lavender and lilies, Dreaming I linger in the noontide heat. Of many summers are the trees recorders, The turf a carpet many summers wove; Old-fashioned blossoms cluster in the borders, Love-in-a-mist and crimson-hearted clove. All breathes of peace and sunshine in the present, All tells of bygone peace and bygone sun, Of fruitful years accomplished, budding, crescent, Of gentle seasons passing one by one. Fain would I bide, but ever in the distance A ceaseless voice is sounding clear and low;-- The city calls me with her old persistence, The city calls me--I arise and go. Of gentler souls this fragrant peace is guerdon; For me, the roar and hurry of the town, Wherein more lightly seems to press the burden Of individual life that weighs me down. I leave your garden to the happier comers For whom its silent sweets are anodyne. Shall I return? Who knows, in other summers The peace my spirit longs for may be mine? _Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire_ _To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,_ _Would not we shatter it to bits--and then_ _Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!_ OMAR KHAYYÁM. Love, Dreams, & Death. _New Love, New Life._ [Illustration: text decoration] I. She, who so long has lain Stone-stiff with folded wings, Within my heart again The brown bird wakes and sings. Brown nightingale, whose strain Is heard by day, by night, She sings of joy and pain, Of sorrow and delight. II. ’Tis true,--in other days Have I unbarred the door; He knows the walks and ways-- Love has been here before. Love blest and love accurst Was here in days long past; This time is not the first, But this time is the last. _Impotens._ [Illustration: text decoration] If I were a woman of old, What prayers I would pray for you, dear; My pitiful tribute behold-- Not a prayer, but a tear. The pitiless order of things, Whose laws we may change not nor break, Alone I could face it--it wrings My heart for your sake. _Youth and Love._ [Illustration: text decoration] What does youth know of love? Little enough, I trow! He plucks the myrtle for his brow, For his forehead the rose. Nay, but of love It is not youth who knows. _The Dream._ _Believe me, this was true last night,_ _Tho’ it is false to-day._ A. M. F. ROBINSON.