The flowers of June
The gates of memory unbar:
The flowers of June
Such old-time harmonies retune,
I fain would keep the gates ajar,--
So full of sweet enchantment are
The flowers of June.

--James T. White.

Who loves not June
Is out of tune
With love and God;
The rose his rival reigns,
The stars reject his pains,
His home the clod!

And yet I trow,
When sweet rondeau
Doth play a part,
The curtain drops on June;
Veiled is the modest moon--
Hushed is the heart.

Come, in the minstrel's lay;
When two hearts meet,
And true hearts greet,
And all is morn and May.

Come Thou! and now, anew,
To thought and deed
Give sober speed,
Thy will to know, and do.

Stay! till the storms are o'er--
The cold blasts done,
The reign of heaven begun,
And Love, the evermore.

Be patient, waiting heart:
Light, Love divine
Is here, and thine;
You therefore cannot part.

"The seasons come and go:
Love, like the sea,
Rolls on with thee,--
But knows no ebb and flow.

O for thy wings, sweet bird!
And soul of melody by being blest--
Like thee, my voice had stirred
Some dear remembrance in a weary breast.

But whither wouldst thou rove,
Bird of the airy wing, and fold thy plumes?
In what dark leafy grove
Wouldst chant thy vespers 'mid rich glooms?

Or sing thy love-lorn note--
In deeper solitude, where nymph or saint
Has wooed some mystic spot,
Divinely desolate the shrine to paint?

Yet wherefore ask thy doom?
Blessed compared with me thou art--
Unto thy greenwood home

Come to me, joys of heaven!
Breathe through the summer air
A balm--the long-lost leaven
Dissolving death, despair!
O little heart,
To me thou art
A sign that never can depart.

Come to me, peace on earth!
From out life's billowy sea,--
A wave of welcome birth,--
The Life that lives in Thee!
O Love divine,
This heart of Thine
Is all I need to comfort mine.

Come when the shadows fall,
And night grows deeply dark;
The barren brood, O call
With song of morning lark;
And from above,

I'm sitting alone where the shadows fall
In somber groups at the vesper-call,
Where tear-dews of night seek the loving rose,
Her bosom to fill with mortal woes.

I'm waiting alone for the bridal hour
Of nymph and naiad from woodland bower;
Till vestal pearls that on leaflets lay,
Ravished with beauty the eye of day.

I'm watching alone o'er the starlit glow,
O'er the silv'ry moon and ocean flow;
And sketching in light the heaven of my youth--
Its starry hopes and its waves of truth.

I'm dreaming alone of its changeful sky--

Brood o'er us with Thy shelt'ring wing,
'Neath which our spirits blend
Like brother birds, that soar and sing,
And on the same branch bend.
The arrow that doth wound the dove
Darts not from those who watch and love.

If thou the bending reed wouldst break
By thought or word unkind,
Pray that his spirit you partake,
Who loved and healed mankind:
Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain,
That make men one in love remain.

Learn, too, that wisdom's rod is given
For faith to kiss, and know;
That greetings glorious from high heaven,

St. John examines Dante concerning Love.--Dante's
sight restored.--Adam appears, and answers questions put to him
by Dante.

While I was apprehensive because of my quenched sight, a breath
which made me attentive issued from the effulgent flame that
quenched it, saying, "While thou art regaining the sense of
sight which thou hast consumed on me, it is well that thou make
up for it by discourse. Begin then, and tell whereto thy soul is
aimed, and make thy reckoning that sight is in thee bewildered
and not dead; because the Lady who conducts thee through this

O your hands--they are strangely fair!
Fair--for the jewels that sparkle there,--
Fair--for the witchery of the spell
That ivory keys alone can tell;
But when their delicate touches rest
Here in my own do I love them best
As I clasp with eager, acquisitive spans
My glorious treasure of beautiful hands!

Marvelous--wonderful--beautiful hands!
They can coax roses to bloom in the strands
Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine,
Under mysterious touches of thine,
Into such knots as entangle the soul
And fetter the heart under such a control

Most men know love but as a part of life;
They hide it in some corner of the breast,
Even from themselves; and only when they rest
In the brief pauses of that daily strife,
Wherewith the world might else be not so rife,
They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy
To soothe some ardent, kiss-exacting boy)
And hold it up to sister, child, or wife.
Ah me! why may not love and life be one?
Why walk we thus alone, when by our side,
Love, like a visible God, might be our guide?
How would the marts grow noble! and the street,

To lift the sombre fringes of the Night,
To open lands long darkened to the Light,
To heal grim wounds, to give the blind new sight,
Right mightily wrought he.
Forth to the fight he fared,
High things and great he dared,
He thought of all men but himself,
Himself he never spared.
He greatly loved--
He greatly lived--
And died right mightily.

Like Him he served, he walked life's troublous ways,
With heart undaunted, and with calm, high face,
And gemmed each day with deeds of sweetest grace;