And when he comes to me, I must sit quiet: Still as a stone-- All silent and cold. If my heart riot-- Crush and defy it! Should I grow bold-- Say one dear thing to him, All my life fling to him, Cling to him-- What to atone Is enough for my sinning! This were the cost to me, This were my winning-- That he were lost to me. Not as a lover At last if he part from me, Tearing my heart from me-- Hurt beyond cure,-- Calm and demure Then must I hold me-- In myself fold me-- Lest he discover; Showing no sign to him By look of mine to him What he has been to me-- How my heart turns to him, Follows him, yearns to him, Prays him to love me. Pity me, lean to me, Thou God above me! R.W. GILDER. The Flight. Upon a cloud among the stars we stood. The angel raised his hand and looked and said, "Which world, of all yon starry myriad Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude Became a harp whereon his voice and mood Made spheral music round his haloed head. I spake--for then I had not long been dead-- "Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood A moment on these orbs ere I decide ... What is yon lower star that beauteous shines And with soft splendor now incarnadines Our wings?--_There_ would I go and there abide." He smiled as one who some child's thought divines: "That is the world where yesternight you died." L. MIFFLIN. Childhood. Old Sorrow I shall meet again, And Joy, perchance--but never, never, Happy Childhood, shall we twain See each other's face forever! And yet I would not call thee back, Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me, Thine old companion, on the rack Of Age, should sadden even thee. J.B. TABB. Little Boy Blue.[10] The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new And the soldier was passing fair, And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them and put them there. "Now, don't you go till I come," he said, "And don't you make any noise!" So toddling off to his trundle-bed He dreampt of the pretty toys. And as he was dreaming, an angel song Awakened our Little Boy Blue,-- Oh, the years are many, the years are long, But the little toy friends are true. Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand, Each in the same old place, Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face. And they wonder, as waiting these long years through, In the dust of that little chair, What has become of our Little Boy Blue Since he kissed them and put them there. E. FIELD. [10] From "A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. Strong as Death.[11]