TWO LOVERS.
BY GEORGE ELIOT.
Mary Ann Evans was born at Warwickshire, in 1819. She received her education at Nuneaton, and also at Coventry. In 1851 she was given the position of assistant editor on the “Westminster Review,” which she held until 1853. In the following year she entered into a domestic and philosophical partnership with George Henry Lewes. Two years after his death she married John Walter Cross, a man much younger than herself. After her death her husband published her memoirs. She died at Chelsea, London, in 1880. Though shunned by the women of her acquaintance, Eliot was courted by the greatest philosophers of her time.
Two lovers by a moss-grown spring:
They leaned soft cheeks together there,
Mingled the dark and sunny hair,
And heard the wooing thrushes sing.
O budding time!
O, love’s blest prime!
Two wedded from the portal stept:
The bells made happy carolings,
The air was soft as fanning wings,
White petals on the pathway slept.
O pure-eyed bride!
O tender pride!
Two faces o’er a cradle bent:
Two hands above the head were locked;
These pressed each other while they rocked,
Those watched a life that love had sent.
O solemn hour!
O hidden power!
Two parents by the evening fire:
The red light fell about their knees
On heads that rose by slow degrees
Like buds upon the lily spire.
O patient life!
O tender strife!
The two still sat together there,
The red light shone about their knees;
But all the heads by slow degrees
Had gone and left that lonely pair.
O voyage fast!
O vanished past!
The red light shone upon the floor
And made the space between them wide;
They drew their chairs up side by side,
Their pale cheeks joined, and said,
“Once more!”
O memories!
O past that is!
DRIFTING.
BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
Thomas Buchanan Read, artist and poet, was born in 1822 and died in 1872. His youth was spent in poverty and he earned a miserable existence at tailoring and cigar-making. He played on the stage and took to painting in oils. His work attracted interest and he opened a studio. About the same time he began writing, alternating the brush with the pen. His best-known poems are “Sheridan’s Ride” and “Drifting.” He published a volume of poetry and two of prose. His pictures include portraits of Longfellow, Dallas, Ex-Queen of Naples, Mrs. Browning and “The Lost Pleiad,” “The Star of Bethlehem,” “Spirit of the Waterfall,” and “Sheridan’s Ride.”