So when in tears
      The love of years
    Is wasted like the snow,
  And the fine fibrils of its life
  By the rude wrong of instant strife
    Are broken at a blow–
      Within the heart
      Do springs upstart
    Of which it doth now know,
      And strange, sweet dreams,
      Like silent streams
  That from new fountains overflow,
      With the earlier tide
      Of rivers glide
  Deep in the heart whose hope has died–
  Quenching the fires its ashes hide,–
    Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
      Sweet flowers, ere long,–
    The rare and radiant flowers of song!

Florence wears an added grace,
  All her earlier honors crowning;
Dante’s birthplace, Art’s fair home,
  Holds the dust of Barrett Browning.

Guardian of the noble dead
  That beneath thy soil lie sleeping,
England, with full heart, commends
  This new treasure to thy keeping.

Take her, she is half thine own;
  In her verses’ rich outpouring,
Breathes the warm Italian heart,
  Yearning for the land’s restoring.

From thy skies her poet-heart
  Caught a fresher inspiration,
And her soul obtained new strength,
  With her bodily translation.

Freely take what thou hast given,
  Less her verses’ rhythmic beauty,
Than the stirring notes that called
  Trumpet-like thy sons to duty.

Rarest of exotic flowers
  In thy native chaplet twining,
To the temple of thy great
  Add her–she is worth enshrining.

I received this poem one day in my email.  I found copies of it as far back as the year 2000, but was unable to identify it’s origin.

A CLOCK AND AUNT HANNAH
Mrs. Kate Hartwell, the Henshaw brothers’
sister from the West, was expected on the tenth.
Her husband could not come, she had written,
but she would bring with her, little Kate, the
youngest child.  The boys, Paul and Egbert,
would stay with their father.

Billy received the news of little Kate’s coming
with outspoken delight.

“The very thing!” she cried.  “We’ll have
her for a flower girl.  She was a dear little creature,
as I remember her.”

Aunt Hannah gave a sudden low laugh.

“Yes, I remember,” she observed.  “Kate
told me, after you spent the first day with her,
that you graciously informed her that little Kate
was almost as nice as Spunk.  Kate did not fully
appreciate the compliment, I fear.”

Billy made a wry face.

“Did I say that?  Dear me!  I _was_ a terror
in those days, wasn’t I?  But then,” and she
laughed softly, “really, Aunt Hannah, that was
the prettiest thing I knew how to say, for I
considered Spunk the top-notch of desirability.”

“I think I should have liked to know Spunk,”
smiled Marie from the other side of the sewing
table.

“He was a dear,” declared Billy.  “I had
another ‘most as good when I first came to Hillside,
but he got lost.  For a time it seemed as if I never
wanted another, but I’ve about come to the conclusion
now that I do, and I’ve told Bertram to find
one for me if he can.  You see I shall be lonesome
after you’re gone, Marie, and I’ll have to have
_something_,” she finished mischievously.

“Oh, I don’t mind the inference–as long as
I know your admiration of cats,” laughed Marie.

“Let me see; Kate writes she is coming the
tenth,” murmured Aunt Hannah, going back
to the letter in her hand.

“Good!” nodded Billy.  “That will give time
to put little Kate through her paces as flower
girl.”

“Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to _try_ to
make your breakfast a supper, and your roses
pinks–or sunflowers,” cut in a new voice, dryly.

“Cyril!” chorussed the three ladies in horror,
adoration, and amusement–according to whether
the voice belonged to Aunt Hannah, Marie, or
Billy.

Cyril shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“I beg your pardon,” he apologized; “but
Rosa said you were in here sewing, and I told
her not to bother.  I’d announce myself.  Just
as I got to the door I chanced to hear Billy’s
speech, and I couldn’t resist making the amendment.
Maybe you’ve forgotten Kate’s love of
managing–but I haven’t,” he finished, as he
sauntered over to the chair nearest Marie.

“No, I haven’t–forgotten,” observed Billy,
meaningly.

“Nor I–nor anybody else,” declared a
severe voice–both the words and the severity
being most extraordinary as coming from the
usually gentle Aunt Hannah.

“Oh, well, never mind,” spoke up Billy, quickly.
“Everything’s all right now, so let’s forget it.
She always meant it for kindness, I’m sure.”

“Even when she told you in the first place
what a–er–torment you were to us?” quizzed
Cyril.

“Yes,” flashed Billy.  “She was being kind to
_you_, then.”

“Humph!” vouchsafed Cyril.

For a moment no one spoke.  Cyril’s eyes were
on Marie, who was nervously trying to smooth
back a few fluffy wisps of hair that had escaped
from restraining combs and pins.

“What’s the matter with the hair, little girl?”
asked Cyril in a voice that was caressingly irritable.
“You’ve been fussing with that long-
suffering curl for the last five minutes!”

Marie’s delicate face flushed painfully.

“It’s got loose–my hair,” she stammered,
“and it looks so dowdy that way!”

Billy dropped her thread suddenly.  She sprang
for it at once, before Cyril could make a move to
get it.  She had to dive far under a chair to capture
it–which may explain why her face was so
very red when she finally reached her seat again.
On the morning of the tenth, Billy, Marie, and
Aunt Hannah were once more sewing together,
this time in the little sitting-room at the end of
the hall up-stairs.

Billy’s fingers, in particular, were flying very
fast.

“I told John to have Peggy at the door at
eleven,” she said, after a time; “but I think I
can finish running in this ribbon before then.  I
haven’t much to do to get ready to go.”

“I hope Kate’s train won’t be late,” worried
Aunt Hannah.

“I hope not,” replied Billy; “but I told Rosa
to delay luncheon, anyway, till we get here.  I–”
She stopped abruptly and turned a listening ear
toward the door of Aunt Hannah’s room, which
was open.  A clock was striking.  “Mercy!
that can’t be eleven now,” she cried.  “But it
must be–it was ten before I came up-stairs.”
She got to her feet hurriedly.

Aunt Hannah put out a restraining hand.

“No, no, dear, that’s half-past ten.”

“But it struck eleven.”

“Yes, I know.  It does–at half-past ten.”

“Why, the little wretch,” laughed Billy,
dropping back into her chair and picking up her work
again.  “The idea of its telling fibs like that and
frightening people half out of their lives!  I’ll
have it fixed right away.  Maybe John can do it
–he’s always so handy about such things.”

“But I don’t want it fixed,” demurred Aunt
Hannah.

Billy stared a little.

“You don’t want it fixed!  Maybe you like
to have it strike eleven when it’s half-past ten!”
Billy’s voice was merrily sarcastic.

“Y-yes, I do,” stammered the lady,
apologetically.  “You see, I–I worked very hard to
fix it so it would strike that way.”

“_Aunt Hannah!_”

“Well, I did,” retorted the lady, with
unexpected spirit.  “I wanted to know what time it
was in the night–I’m awake such a lot.”

“But I don’t see.”  Billy’s eyes were perplexed.
“Why must you make it tell fibs in order to–to
find out the truth?” she laughed.

Aunt Hannah elevated her chin a little.

“Because that clock was always striking one.”

“One!”

“Yes–half-past, you know; and I never
knew which half-past it was.”

“But it must strike half-past now, just the
same!”

“It does.”  There was the triumphant ring of
the conqueror in Aunt Hannah’s voice.  “But
now it strikes half-past _on the hour_, and the clock
in the hall tells me _then_ what time it is, so I don’t
care.”

For one more brief minute Billy stared, before
a sudden light of understanding illumined her
face.  Then her laugh rang out gleefully.

“Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah,” she
gurgled.  “If Bertram wouldn’t call you the limit
–making a clock strike eleven so you’ll know it’s
half-past ten!”

Aunt Hannah colored a little, but she stood
her ground.

“Well, there’s only half an hour, anyway, now,
that I don’t know what time it is,” she maintained,
“for one or the other of those clocks strikes the
hour every thirty minutes.  Even during those
never-ending three ones that strike one after
the other in the middle of the night, I can tell
now, for the hall clock has a different sound for
the half-hours, you know, so I can tell whether
it’s one or a half-past.”

“Of course,” chuckled Billy.

“I’m sure I think it’s a splendid idea,” chimed
in Marie, valiantly; “and I’m going to write it
to mother’s Cousin Jane right away.  She’s an
invalid, and she’s always lying awake nights
wondering what time it is.  The doctor says
actually he believes she’d get well if he could find
some way of letting her know the time at night,
so she’d get some sleep; for she simply can’t
go to sleep till she knows.  She can’t bear a light
in the room, and it wakes her all up to turn an
electric switch, or anything of that kind.”

“Why doesn’t she have one of those phosphorous
things?” questioned Billy.

Marie laughed quietly.

“She did.  I sent her one,–and she stood it
just one night.”

“Stood it!”

“Yes.  She declared it gave her the creeps,
and that she wouldn’t have the spooky thing
staring at her all night like that.  So it’s got to
be something she can hear, and I’m going to
tell her Mrs. Stetson’s plan right away.”

“Well, I’m sure I wish you would,” cried that
lady, with prompt interest; “and she’ll like it,
I’m sure.  And tell her if she can hear a _town_
clock strike, it’s just the same, and even better;
for there aren’t any half-hours at all to think of
there.”

“I will–and I think it’s lovely,” declared
Marie.

“Of course it’s lovely,” smiled Billy, rising;
“but I fancy I’d better go and get ready to meet
Mrs. Hartwell, or the `lovely’ thing will be telling
me that it’s half-past eleven!”  And she
tripped laughingly from the room.

Promptly at the appointed time John with
Peggy drew up before the door, and Billy, muffled
in furs, stepped into the car, which, with its
protecting top and sides and glass wind-shield, was
in its winter dress.

“Yes’m, ’tis a little chilly, Miss,” said John,
in answer to her greeting, as he tucked the heavy
robes about her.

“Oh, well, I shall be very comfortable, I’m
sure,” smiled Billy.  “Just don’t drive too rapidly,
specially coming home.  I shall have to get a
limousine, I think, when my ship comes in, John.”

John’s grizzled old face twitched.  So evident
were the words that were not spoken that Billy
asked laughingly:

“Well, John, what is it?”

John reddened furiously.

“Nothing, Miss.  I was only thinkin’ that if
you didn’t ‘tend ter haulin’ in so many other
folks’s ships, yours might get in sooner.”

“Why, John!  Nonsense!  I–I love to haul
in other folks’s ships,” laughed the girl, embarrassedly.

“Yes, Miss; I know you do,” grunted John.

Billy colored.

“No, no–that is, I mean–I don’t do it–
very much,” she stammered.

John did not answer apparently; but Billy
was sure she caught a low-muttered, indignant
“much!” as he snapped the door shut and took
his place at the wheel.

To herself she laughed softly.  She thought she
possessed the secret now of some of John’s
disapproving glances toward her humble guests of
the summer before.

Soul, wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost, indeed,
But tens have won an all.

Angels’ breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus
Raffle for my soul.

Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It rose and fell and murmuring sang
Aeolian harmonies!

I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
And thus meseemed, they sung:

“I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
With all men know or feel,–

“Is it so strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.

“There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
Echoes my melody.

“Come close, and lay your listening ear
Against the bare and branchless wood.
Can you not hear it crooning clear,
As though it understood?”

I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire;
I heard its muffled music roll,
And stirred with sweet desire:

“O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for me?
Though long to me so coyly mute,
Her heart may speak through thee!”

I listened, but it was in vain.
At first, the wind’s old wayward will
Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain.
That ceased; and all was still.

But suddenly some kindling shock
Struck flashing through the wire: a bird,
Poised on it, screamed and flew; the flock
Rose with him; wheeled and whirred.

Then to my soul there came this sense:
“Her heart has answered unto thine;
She comes, to-night. Go, speed thee hence:
Meet her; no more repine!”

Perhaps the fancy was far-fetched;
And yet, perhaps, it hinted true.
Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
In mine, that gave me–you!

And so more dear to me has grown
Than rarest tones swept from the lyre,
The minor movement of that moan
In yonder singing wire.

Nor care I for the will of states,
Or aught beside, that smites that string,
Since then so close it knit our fates,
What time the bird took wing!

  Ah! what is not a dream by day
    To him whose eyes are cast
  On things around him with a ray
    Turned back upon the past?

  That holy dream–that holy dream,
    While all the world were chiding,
  Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,
    A lonely spirit guiding.

  What though that light, thro’ storm and night,
    So trembled from afar–
  What could there be more purely bright
    In Truth’s day star?

    I gazed awhile
    On her cold smile;
  Too cold–too cold for me–
    There passed, as a shroud,
    A fleecy cloud,
  And I turned away to thee,
    Proud Evening Star,
    In thy glory afar
  And dearer thy beam shall be;
    For joy to my heart
    Is the proud part
  Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
    And more I admire
    Thy distant fire,
  Than that colder, lowly light.

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!