LINES TO D. G. T. OF SHERWOOD.

To check me, as my mother did
When I was but a child.

But I have felt thee in my thoughts
Fighting with sin for me;

And when my heart loves God, perhaps
The sweetness is from thee.

And when, dear spirit, I kneel down
Morning and night to prayer,
Something there is within my heart
Which tells me thou art there.

And thou in life's last hour wilt bring
A fresh supply of grace,
And afterwards wilt let me kiss
Thy beautiful, bright face.

LINES TO D. G. T. OF SHERWOOD.

MRS. M. G. HORSFord.

BLESSINGS On thee, noble boy!
With thy sunny eyes of blue,
Speaking in their cloudless depths
Of a spirit pure and true.

117

In thy thoughtful look and calm,

In thy forehead broad and high, We have seemed to meet again

One whose home is in the sky.

Thou to earth art still a stranger,
To life's tumult and unrest;
Angel-visitants alone

Stir the fountains in thy breast.

Thou hast yet no Past to shadow
With a fear thy Future's light,
And the present spreads before thee
Boundless as the infinite.

But each passing hour must waken
Energies that slumber now,
Manhood with its fire and action
Stamp that fair, unfurrowed brow.

Into life's sublime arena,

Opening through the world's broad mart,

Bear thy mother's gentle spirit,

And her kind and loving heart.

With exalted hope and purpose,
To the great and good aspire;
Downward, in unsullied glory
Hand the honor of thy sire.

LINES WRITTEN IN A PRAYER-BOOK. 119

With that love for truth and justice

After annals shall declare

Highest proof of moral greatness,
Nobly live and nobly dare.

Cloudless pass thine infant days;
Childhood bring thee naught but joy;
Manhood, thought and dignity:

Blessings on thee, noble boy!

WRITTEN IN A PRAYER-BOOK GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTER.

BERNARD BARTON.

My creed requires no form of prayer;
Yet would I not condemn
Those who adopt with pious care

Their use as aids to them.

One God hath fashioned them and me;

One Spirit is our guide;

For each, alike, upon the tree

One common Saviour died!

Each the same trumpet-call shall wake,
To face one judgment-seat;
God give us grace, for Jesus' sake,

In the same heaven to meet!

THE SOUL.

R. C. WATERSTON.

WHY was this ponderous planet hung in air, With grandeur robed, and crowned with beauty

fair?

Hear ye the voice which whispers from afar,
Speaks in each breeze, is echoed from each star!
For Man the myriad wheels of Nature roll;
He is the central sun, the Living Soul.

View the glad earth,- her oceans and her rills, Her verdant valleys and her vine-clad hills; Behold with rapture all that meets thy sight, Beaming with love, and touched with heavenly light;

But know that earth's magnificence combined, Shrinks to a point, when balanced with the MIND!

Let thy free thought go forth, and nobly dare
To pierce high heaven, and view each splendor
there,

Draw the bright curtain from creation's face,
And, trembling, gaze through boundless fields of

space;

Yet feel that those vast scenes before thee brought Are not so wondrous as thy Power of Thought!

O Thou, who "spake creation into birth,"
Then formed the Soul as sovereign of the earth,
Naught is so vast in thy majestic plan,

As thine own image symbolized in man!
Teach us to know, and humbly to revere
The mighty marvels thou hast centred here;
To bow with awe before each inward light,
The sense of wrong, the consciousness of right.
The aspirations which to heaven would soar,-
The power to love, contemplate, and adore;
Mysterious thought, which with an eagle glance
Measures the depth of infinite expanse;
Immortal hope, that may for ever shine;
These live within, and burn with power divine!

Arouse thee, Soul! and turn thy piercing eye
On thine own inward being! Learn the high
And holy purposes for which on earth
Jehovah gave thy wondrous spirit birth :
Ponder each heavenly hope, each earthly strife,
And know the long-forever- of thy life!

Up! child of earth, and, wondering, behold

This world of thought. Let all its powers unfold
Before thine awe-struck vision. Guard with care
The faintest spark which God has kindled there;
Let no untimely frost, nor blight of sin,
Blast the immortal life which buds within!