I know a home, with curtains drawn —
Enfolded round the warmth and light ;

The glow of summer noon is there,

Though outside there are snow and night.
I know each picture on the walls,

Each gem in bronze or bisque or brass ;

The dainty chairs, the carpets bright,
I greet as friends whene'er I pass.
1 6 ALLEGRO-MAESTRO.
Oh, bonny home ! oh, dreamland home !

My heart yearns for you night and day ;
What cruel fate has barred your door,

And forced my steps another way ?



ADAGIO.
LA TRISTESSE.
||HE snow lies white and soft across the hills,
And rugged steeps and jagged valleys fills ;
It spreads rough knots and black impurities
With seamless mask, that fair and level lies.
The bare, brown earth with ghostly shroud is

spread,
Marred by no mark, save rabbit's dimpled tread ;
And snowy-powdered twig and branch of pine,
Form lovely lace- work where they intertwine.
And yet, methinks the Earth this beauty wears
As a disguise, to hide the scars she bears,
When summer charm and freshness, dying, left
Our earth in widow's weeds, like one bereft.
The thought is sad to me ; so like our hearts
That try to mask their gloom when joy departs !
We wear a surface of gay smiles, to hide
The shadowed cares and bitterness inside.
Aye ! it is well to veil, with careless grace,
Our deeper selves from this world's staring face ;
Our precedent from Nature's self we bring,
Who rounds her angles with soft covering.
17



18 ADAGIO.
And like the snows, our masks oft melt away
And show scarred features to the eye of day.
