Thou hast no answer, thou unpitying gale? No gentle whisper from the past to me! No snatches of sweet song--no tender tale-- No happy ripple of that summer sea; Are all my dreams wrecked on the nevermore? O wild November wind, restore, restore! BY THE SEA. Blue is the mist on the mountains, White is the fog on the sea; Ruby and gold is the sunset,-- And Bertha is waiting for me. Down on the loathsome sand-beach, Her eyes as blue as the mist; Her brows as white as the sea-fog,-- Bertha, whose lips I have kissed. Bertha, whose lips are like rubies, Whose hair is like coiled gold; Whose sweet, rare smile is tenderer Than any legend of old. One morn, one noon, one sunset, Must pass before we meet; O wind and sail bear steady on, And bring me to her feet. The morn rose pale and sullen, The noon was still and dun; Across the storm at sunset, Came the boom of a signal-gun. Who treads the loathsome sand-beach, With wet, disordered hair; With garments tangled with sea-weed, And cheeks more pale than fair? O blue-eyed, white-browed maiden, He will keep love's tryst no more; His ship sailed safely into port-- But on the heavenward shore. POLK COUNTY HILLS. November came that day, And all the air was gray With delicate mists, blown down From hill-tops by the south wind's balmy breath; And all the oaks were brown As Egypt's kings in death; The maple's crown of gold Laid tarnished on the wold; The alder and the ash, the aspen and the willow, Wore tattered suits of yellow. The soft October rains Had left some scarlet stains Of color on the landscape's neutral ground; Those fine ephemeral things, The winged motes of sound, That sing the "Harvest Home" Of ripe Autumn in the gloam Of the deep and bosky woods, in the field and by the river, Sang that day their best endeavor. I said: "In what sweet place Shall we meet face to face, Her loveliest self to see-- Meet Nature at her sad autumnal rites, And learn the mystery Of her unnamed delights?" Then you said: "Let us go Where the late violets blow In hollows of the hills, under dead oak leaves hiding;-- We'll find she's there abiding." Do we recall that day? Has its grace passed away? Its tenderest, dream-like tone, Like one of Turner's landscapes limned on air-- Has its fine perfume flown And left the memory bare? Not so; its charm is still Over wood, vale and hill-- The ferny odor sweet, the humming insect chorus, The spirit that before us