And so 't would be should life run on A hundred years instead of one; Such love can never lose on earth

The sweetness of its heavenly birth.

Such love was never born to die,
The heir of immortality,

Its being shall outlast that sun,
Under whose course its life begun.

1870.

Y dearest love! I thank my God

MY

For giving thee to me,

A daily spring of household joy,
Through all my life to be.

When Adam married Eve, he found

His paradise undone;

But mine, when I had gained a wife,

Was only so begun.

For Eve's control in Adam's sphere,

The price was Eden lost;

But now, through woman's sweet command, His sons recover cost.

The silver line of Eve's dear life,

From Eden turned away,

Made a celestial pilgrimage

Of every toilsome day.

They wandered forth, a pair perplext

Of children in the wood,

Their work of love, their wealth of time, How little understood!

Their dowry was a thousand years
Of mingled joy and pain,
Appointed so, through faith and hope,
Love's Eden to regain.

In penitential faith and prayer,
From youth to age they grew,
The primal sinners of this world,
The first believers too.

Great cycles of Eonic time.

Were given to them for praise, Centennial anniversaries

Of lovers' wedding days.

A quarter of a century,

In their connubial bliss,

Was but a little honeymoon's
Preliminary kiss.

But we are pressed by heavy laws

Of briefness and decay,

And hardly learn to live and love

Before life wears away.

Their golden wedding, in the age

Of post-diluvian men,

Brings bride and bridegroom to the verge Of threescore years and ten.

Dear wife! be scores or centuries
To our communion given,
The love that God began on earth
He will perfect in heaven.

Our golden wedding shall be there

Before his glorious face;

The bride, the bridegroom, and the guests Transfigured by his grace.

1870.

LINES ADDRESSED TO MRS. C. ON HER TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY, BY HER VERY DEAR FRIEND, MISS PHOEBE CARY.

HE fourth of a century swift has gone,

THE

With its sad and its joyous hours,

Since you put the wedding garment on,
And wore the orange flowers.

And rich in honor and in truth
As when you were his bride,
To-day the husband of your youth
Is your lover, friend, and guide.

And sweeter for your hours of bliss,
Stronger for grief and tears,
Have grown the ties of tenderness.
Through all your changing years.

So with the crowns of silver hair
That now your brows adorn,
Each to the other seems as fair
As on the marriage morn.