BELIEVE IT NOT.

WHERE have the robins flown?

Perchance alone,

Unguided wanderers on some desert shore.

Believe it not.

In some bright, sunny isle

They linger for a while,

Until the spring's sweet smile

Allures them to their jocund haunts once more.

Why do the flowers fade?

Forever dead,

Silent they lie, unheeding sun or rain.

Believe it not.

The lily and the rose

Their fragrant petals close

'Gainst winter's frost and snows,

Till summer's sunshine wakes to life again.

Drear winters hath the heart,

From love apart;

A chasm opens where no sunshine glows.

Believe it not.

Our sky is overcast,

The sun shall shine at last,

Then, all our sorrows past,

True love shall bloom, more beauteous than the rose.

A. L. H.