For many long uninterrupted years
She was the friend and confidant of Art;
They walked together, heart communed with heart
In that sweet comradeship that so endears.
Her fondest hopes, her sorrows and her fears
She told her mate; who would in turn impart
Important truths and secrets. But a dart,
Shot by that unskilled, mischievous boy, who peers
From ambush on us, struck one day her breast,
And Love sprang forth to kiss away her tears.
She thought his brow shone with a wondrous grace;
But, when she turned to introduce her guest
To Art, behold, she found an empty place,
The goddess fled, with sad, averted face.
ONE WOMAN'S HISTORY.
"The maiden free, the maiden wed.
Can never, never be the same,
A new life springs from out the dead
And with the speaking of a name--
A breath upon the marriage bed,
She finds herself a something new.
"Where lay the shallows of the maid
No plummet line the wife can sound;
Where round the sunny islands played
The pulses of the great profound
Lies low the treacherous everglade.
"A wife is like an unknown sea,
Least known to him who thinks he knows
Where all the shores of Promise be,
And where the islands of Repose--
And where the rocks that he must flee."