While I gaze ye are gone, and I see you depart
With a wistful regret lying deep in my heart,--
A longing for something that will not decay,
Or melt like these frost-flowers in tear-drops away,--
A passionate yearning of heart for that shore
Where beauty unfading shall last evermore;
Nor, e'en as we gaze, from our vision be lost
Like the beautiful things that are pencilled in frost!




THE BEECH-NUT GATHERER.


All over the earth like a mantle,
Golden, and green, and grey,
Crimson, and scarlet, and yellow,
The Autumn foliage lay;--
The sun of the Indian Summer
Laughed at the bare old trees
As they shook their leafless branches
In the soft October breeze.

Gorgeous was every hill-side,
And gorgeous every nook,
And the dry, old log was gorgeous,
Spanning the little brook;
Its holiday robes, the forest
Had suddenly cast to earth,