LILLITA.

Can I forget how, when you stood

‘ Mid orchards whence spring bloom had fled,

Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,

And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead

With shining ghosts of blossoms dead!

Or when you bowed, a lily tall,

Above your August lilies slim,

Transparent pale, that by the wall

Like softest moonlight seemed to swim,

Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim.

And in the cloud that lingered low —

A silent pallor in the West —

There stirred and beat a golden glow

Of some great heart that could not rest,

A heart of gold within its breast.

Your heart, your life was in the wild,

Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will

Lament its love, when wafted mild

The harvest drifted from the hill:

The deep, deep wildwood where had trod

The red deer o'er the fallen hush

Of Fall's torn leaves, when the low tod

Was frosty‘ neath each berried bush.

At dusk the whip-will still complains

Above your lolling lilies, where

Their faces white the moonlight stains,

The dreamy stream flows far and fair

Whisp'ring of rest an easeful air...

O music of the falling rain,

At night unto her painless rest

Sound sweet and sad, then is she fain

To see the wild flowers on her breast

Lift moist, pure faces up again

To breathe to God their fragrance blest.

Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed

Old, mighty arms above her tomb

Where oft I watch at night her ghost

Bow to the wild-flower's full-blown bloom

A mist of curls, where Summer lost

Her tangled sunbeams and perfume.