And some might say,--"Those ruder songs Had freshness which the new have lost: To spring the opening leaf belongs, The chestnut-burrs await the frost." When those I wrote, my locks were brown; When these I write--ah, well-a-day! The autumn thistle's silvery down Is not the purple bloom of May! Go, little book, whose pages hold Those garnered years in loving trust; How long before your blue and gold Shall fade and whiten in the dust? O sexton of the alcoved tomb, Where souls in leathern cerements lie, Tell me each living poet's doom! How long before his book shall die? It matters little, soon or late, A day, a month, a year, an age,-- I read oblivion in its date, And Finis on its title-page. Before we sighed, our griefs were told; Before we smiled, our joys were sung; And all our passions shaped of old In accents lost to mortal tongue. In vain a fresher mould we seek: Can all the varied phrases tell, That Babel's wandering children speak, How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? Caged in the poet's lonely heart, Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; The soul that sings must dwell apart, Its inward melodies unknown. Deal gently with us, ye who read! Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- The promise still outruns the deed,-- The tower, but not the spire, we build. Our whitest pearl we never find; Our ripest fruit we never reach; The flowering moments of the mind Drop half their petals in our speech. These are my blossoms; if they wear One streak of morn or evening's glow, Accept them; but to me more fair The buds of song that never blow. * * * * * THE CHILDREN'S CITIES. BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." There was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and not one above another. His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, divided by valleys covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime. The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went into the king's bed-room, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will was drawn up as he desired.