Up in the barn with the swallows,
And sliding over the mow ;
Pleased with the same old stories,
Heard a thousand times;
Believing all the wonders.
Written in tales or rhymes;
Counting the hours in summer
When even a day seemed long,
Counting the hours in winter

Till the time of leaves and song.
Thinking it took forever

For little children to grow,

And that seventy years of a life-time Never could come and go.

O, I know they were happier children
Than the world again may see,

For one was my little playmate
And one, ah! one was me !

A sad-faced man and woman,
Leagues and leagues apart,
Doing their work as best they may
With weary hand and heart;
Shrinking from winter's tempests,
And summer's burning heat;
Thinking that skies were brighter
And flowers were once more sweet;

Wondering why the skylark

So early tries his wings;

And if green fields are hidden

Beyond the gate where he sings!

Feeling that time is slipping

Faster and faster away;

"THE BAREFOOT BOY."

That a day is but as a moment,

And the years of life as a day;
Seeing the heights and places

Others have reached and won ;
Sighing o'er things accomplished,

And things that are left undone ;
And yet still trusting, somehow,

In his own good time to become
Again as little children,

In their Heavenly Father's home;
One crowding memories backward,
In the busy, restless mart,
One pondering on them ever,

And keeping them in her heart;

Going on by their separate pathways
To the same eternity –

And one of these is my playmate,
And one, alas! is me!

"THE BAREFOOT BOY."

AH! "Barefoot Boy!" you have led me back
O'er the waste of years profound,

To the still, sweet spots, which memory

Hath kept as haunted ground.

You have led me back to the western hills,

Where I played through the summer hours;

And called my little playmate up,

To stand among the flowers.

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We are hand in hand in the fields again,
We are treading through the dew!
And not the poet's "barefoot boy,"
Nor him the artist drew,

Is half so brave and bold and good,
Though bright their colors glow,
As the darling playmate that I had
And lost, so long ago!

I touch the spring-time's tender grass,
I find the daisy buds;

I feel the shadows deep and cool,
In the heart of the summer woods;

I see the ripened autumn nuts,

Like thick hail strew the earth; I catch the fall of the winter snow,

And the glow of the cheerful hearth!

But alas! my playmate, loved and lost,
My heart is full of tears,

For the dead and buried hopes, that are more
Than our dead and buried years:
And I cannot see the poet's rhymes,
Nor the lines the artist drew,

But only the boy that held my hand,
And led my feet through the dew!

LOVE POEMS.

AMY'S LOVE-LETTER.

TURNING some papers carelessly

That were hid away in a desk unused,

I came upon something yesterday
O'er which I pondered and mused:

A letter, faded now and dim,

And stained in places, as if by tears; And yet I had hardly thought of him Who traced its pages for years.

Though once the happy tears made dim

My eyes, and my blushing cheeks grew hot,

To have but a single word from him,
Fond or foolish, no matter what.

If he ever quoted another's rhymes,
Poor in themselves and commonplace,
I said them over a thousand times,
As if he had lent them a grace.

The single color that pleased his taste
Was the only one I would have, or wear,

Even in the girdle about my waist

Or the ribbon that bound my hair.

Then my flowers were the self-same kind and hue;

And yet how strangely one forgets

I cannot think which one of the two
It was, or roses or violets!

But O, the visions I knew and nursed,

While I walked in a world unseen before! For my world began when I knew him first, And must end when he came no more.

We would have died for each other's sake,

Would have given all else in the world below; And we said and thought that our hearts would break When we parted, years ago.

How the pain as well as the rapture seems
A shadowy thing I scarce recall,
Passed wholly out of my life and dreams,
As though it had never been at all.

And is this the end, and is here the grave

Of our steadfast love and our changeless faith About which the poets sing and rave,

Naming it strong as death?

At least 'tis what mine has come to at last,
Stript of all charm and all disguise;
And I wonder if, when he thinks of the past,
He thinks we were foolish or wise?

Well, I am content, so it matters not;
And, speaking about him, some one said
I wish I could only remember what-
But he's either married or dead.