Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter and Spring,
After each other drifting, past my window drifting!
And I lay so many years watching them drift and counting
The years till a terror came in my heart at times,
With the feeling that I had become eternal; at last
My hundredth year was reached! And still I lay
Hearing the tick of the clock, and the low of cattle
And the scream of a jay flying through falling leaves!
Day after day alone in a room of the house
Of a daughter-in-law stricken with age and gray.

Through woolen tresses of her limp red hair,
will she conjure ghosts to pry the locks? —
He wonders as he climbs the creaking stair
to lay her in an attic storage box.

Enchanted is the freckled face she wears
these days so darkened by his daughter’s death.
She is too daft and fey to grasp his cares—
down the seven years of fostered breath.

Her eyes are brilliant as the breaking dawn
afire with the news of Eastertide,
as if faith could bring back the dead and gone,
or put a rib back into Adam’s side.

Am I not he that hath made thee and begotten thee,
I, God, the spirit of man?
Wherefore now these eighteen years hast thou forgotten me,
From whom thy life began?
Thy life-blood and thy life-breath and thy beauty,
Thy might of hands and feet,
Thy soul made strong for divinity of duty
And service which was sweet.
Through the red sea brimmed with blood didst thou not follow me,
As one that walks in trance?
Was the storm strong to break or the sea to swallow thee,
When thou wast free and France?

Henry the first, surnamed " Beauclare,"
Lost his only son William at sea,
So when Henry died it were hard to decide
Who his heir and successor should be.

There were two runners-up for the title-
His daughter Matilda was one,
And the other, a boy, known as Stephen of Blois,
His young sister Adela's son.

Matilda by right should have had it,
Being daughter of him as were dead,
But the folks wasn't keen upon having a queen,
So they went and crowned Stephen instead.

This 'ere were a knockout for Tilda,

The porter in the Pullman car
Was charming, as they sometimes are.
He scanned my baggage tags: "Are you
The man who wrote of Lady Lou?"
When I said "yes" he made a fuss -
Oh, he was most assiduous;
And I was pleased to think that he
Enjoyed my brand of poetry.

He was forever at my call,
So when we got to Montreal
And he had brushed me off, I said:
"I'm glad my poems you have read.
I feel quite flattered, I confess,
And if you give me your address
I'll send you (autographed, of course)
One of my little books of verse."

v.20,21,27-31
C. M.
Christ's sufferings and kingdom.

"Now from the roaring lion's rage,
O Lord, protect thy Son,
Nor leave thy darling to engage
The powers of hell alone."

Thus did our suff'ring Savior pray,
With mighty cries and tears;
God heard him in that dreadful day,
And chased away his fears.

Great was the vict'ry of his death,
His throne exalted high;
And all the kindreds of the earth
Shall worship or shall die.

A num'rous offspring must arise
From his expiring groans;

v.12-15
L. M.
Grace above riches; or, The happy nation.

Happy the city where their sons,
Like pillars round a palace set,
And daughters, bright as polished stones,
Give strength and beauty to the state.

Happy the country where the sheep,
Cattle, and corn, have large increase;
Where men securely work or sleep,
Nor sons of plunder break the peace.

Happy the nation thus endowed,
But more divinely blest are those
On whom the all-sufficient God
Himself with all his grace bestows.

'TIS easier far a wreath to bind,
Than a good owner fort to find.
-----
I KILL'D a thousand flies overnight,
Yet was waken'd by one, as soon as twas light.
-----
To the mother I give;
For the daughter I live.
-----
A BREACH is every day,
By many a mortal storm'd;
Let them fall in the gaps as they may,
Yet a heap of dead is ne'er form'd.
-----
WHAT harm has thy poor mirror done, alas?
Look not so ugly, prythee, in the glass!

WITHOUT increasing his genius, the author may have improved his language, in the eleven years that the following poems have been in the hands of the public. Errors in diction might have been committed at twenty-four, which the experience of a riper age may remove; and some exuberances in imagery may be restrained with advantage, by a degree of judgment acquired in the progress of time. Impressed with this opinion, he ran over the whole with attention and accuracy; and he hopes he has brought the work to a state of correctness which will preclude all future improvements.

Now I know when will come the last morning -- when the Light no more scares away Night and Love -- when sleep shall be without waking, and but one continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross.