The Daily Gazette

Not half can utterance all her joy unfold,
Though she runs o'er and o'er
The strings tried long before.
To body forth the life that's never old,
Not for our sakes arrayed.
Though we would fain persuade
Our foolish hearts that she, in servant guise,
Spreads all her varied show
Before us as we go,
To win approving glances from our eyes.
Ah, no! Though in broad glee
she laughs where all can see,
In leagues of dandelions all dewy wet,
All to herself she smiles
In far-off ocean isles,
And in dim nooks in shy blue violet.
And though she dances still
Along the sheer brown hill
In scarlet glow of swinging columbine,
In gentian she smiles slow,
As happy maid might go,
Who sings, I love him, and his heart is mine!'
She wants no added bliss,
No praise for this, or this:
Simply she is so glad she can not rest,
But still must ever move
In every way outpour
The exceeding bliss that stirs within her breast.
No care for us has she:
And we, alas! - and we
Can look but sadly at her innocent play;
Shut out from Paradise.
We see with other eyes;
The flaming sword has rent all veils away.
To those
Or is that life new but in lying care,
Till on his far-off throne
Our God must hear alone
One cry of pain uprising everywhere?
Yet had it better been
We still had stayed within,
Nor tasted fruit that lets us not forget?
God knows if it be so-
The days go on below.
And overhead the stars, they rise, they set.
ANNA C. BRACKETT. in Harper's Magazine for August.