POETRY.

OLD AND PLAIN.

"0, FEILOW, come, the song we had last night.

Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain; • The spinsters and the knitters in the sun And the free maids that weave their threads with bones Do use to chant it; it is silly Booth.

And dallies with the innocence of love.

Like the old age."

Where has it fled The song that was haunted ?

It was old and plain : And the spinsters 'sat in the sun At the dying of day and chaunted The old refrain Of hearts unwed And love long dead, Of maids ever young So ballad-sung; And the briar that was planted Fragrant in pain ; Heard ye its ballad-fall ?

Nay. Neither note nor call.

Viola sang it of old In Illyria's light; And a band of circling gold Bindeth it clear and bright Unto this weary age of pain and tears; 'And in Olivia's garden where there blow Fair marguerite and sweet forget-me-not In a tiny plot, The birds still sing it; ay and long ago The waking flowers caught up the echo low, Making it musical with gentler tears; And at the gate The spinsters in the sun Warm their cold hearts, though late, And chant it one by one.

Homer loved it well By the Aegean Sea; And Sappho and Anacreon, When the mists fell And blotted out their glee; They, too, saw the knitters in the sun And the spinsters weaving Penelope's web, And the Greek light leaving Day at the ebb : Over them all the shadows passed, Shadows themselves at last.

Have you not heard its fall Where they sit knitting in the tender west? A plaintive, chaunting call Before the hour of rest; When hand and needle cease Into a dream, and peace

Hovers and lights. upon the weary eyes

And the heart, listening, hears

Strange cries from out lost years—

Strange years and far, lost cries; And the sunset reddens fair In the rose of sunsetting, And the day goes there As still as forgetting; And the spinsters and the knitters in the sun Have caught the strain In the hour when shadows run Eastward, and day is done; The song is tinged with pain;

It is old and plain.

T. S. CAMINCIZOSS.