Up where the long, slim shadows fall From the scarlet oak and the pepperidge tall, Where the birds and the squirrels tirelessly call, Where in autumn the flowers of the gentian blue Look up with their eyes so dark and true, Up into the hazy sky, Dreaming away as the red leaves drop, And the acorn falls from its deep brown cup, And the yellow leaves float by; Up where the violets, white and blue, Bloom in sunshine and the dew, Tenderly living their still life through, Where the deep-cut leaves of the liverwort grow, And the great white flowers of the dogwood blow Over the pale anemones;-- Cometh a perfume spicily shed From the wild Azalea's full-wreathed head Lifted among the trees. There where the sun-flecked shadows lie, Quivering light as the breeze laughs by, And the leaves all dance 'neath the soft spring sky; Blossoming bright when the twigs grow green, And the sunlight falls with a tenderer sheen Than comes with the summer noon, Blossoming bright where the laurel gleams, Lifting its sculptured flowers to the beams Of the warm, glad sun of June. And so it smiles to itself all day, Where it stands alone by the mountain way, Hearing the merry young leaves at play; And soft on the stones its smile is cast, And it laughs with the wind as it saunters past, The fresh, young wind of May: And happily thus it lives its life Till the woods with sounds of summer are rife, When it silently passes away. And once again to the hills we go, When the sun shines warm on the fields below Where the midsummer lilies are all aglow, When shadows are thicker, and scarcely the breeze Stirs a leaf on the gleaming poplar trees, And low are the streamlet's tones; For the bright Azalea we look in vain, And long for its smile to gladden again Our hearts and the old gray stones. A PAIR OF STOCKINGS. FROM THE ARMY. Kate was sitting by the window. I was sitting beside her. It may be well to state here that Kate was a young lady, and that I am a young gentleman. Kate had large, lustrous dark eyes, which just then were covered with fringed, drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn I held in my hand. Kate was knitting a stocking, and surely, irrevocably she was taking me captive; already I felt myself entangled by those small threads. We were the inmates of a boarding house. Kate was a new boarder. I had known her but a few weeks.