"Deark d'on dearka.”- Irish Proverb.
THERE is a thought so purely blest
That to its use I oft repair,
When evil breaks my spirit's rest,
And pleasure is but varied care,-
A thought to gild the stormiest skies,
To deck with flowers the bleakest moor,
A thought whose home is paradise,-
The charities of Poor to Poor.
It were not for the rich to blame,
If they, whom Fortune seems to scorn,
Should vent their ill-content and shame
On others less or more forlorn ;
But that the veriest needs of life
Should be dispensed with freer hand
Than all their stores and treasures rife,
Is not for them to understand.
To give the stranger's children bread,
Of your precarious board the spoil,
To watch your helpless neighbor's bed,
And, sleepless, meet the morrow's toil;-
The gifts, not proffered once alone,
The daily sacrifice of years, -
And, when all else to give is gone,
The precious gifts of love and tears;
What record of triumphant deed,
What virtue pompously unfurled,
Can thus refute the gloomy creed
That parts from God our living world?
O Misanthrope! deny who would, -
O Moralists! deny who can,—
Seeds of almost impossible good,
Deep in the deepest life of Man.
Therefore, lament not, honest soul!
That Providence holds back from thee
The means thou might'st so well control,
Those luxuries of charity.
Manhood is nobler, as thou art;
And, should some chance thy coffers fill,
How art thou sure to keep thine heart,
To hold unchanged thy loving will?
Wealth, like all other power, is blind,
And bears a poison in its core,
To taint the best, if feeble, mind,
And madden that debased before.
It is the battle, not the prize,
That fills the hero's breast with joy ;
And industry the bliss supplies,
Which mere possession might destroy.
WELL Speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art,
If with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart,
Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past,
By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind
To all the beauty, power, and truth behind.
Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by
The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms,
Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon
their tombs
The effigies of old confessors lie,
God's witnesses, the voices of his will,
Heard in the slow march of the centuries still!
Such were the men at whose rebuking frown,
Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went
down;
Such from the terrors of the guilty drew
The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due.
St. Anselm (may he rest for evermore
In Heaven's sweet peace!) forbade, of old, the sale
Of men as slaves, and from the sacred pale
Hurled the Northumbrian buyers of the poor.
To ransom souls from bonds and evil fate,
St. Ambrose melted down the sacred plate,
Image of saint, the chalice and the pix,
Crosses of gold, and silver candlesticks.
"Man is worth MORE THAN TEMPLES!" he replied To such as came his holy work to chide. And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare,
And coining from the Abbey's golden hoard The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer Or threat of those whose fierce zeal for the Lord Stifled their love of man, "An earthen dish
The last sad supper of the Master bore:
Most miserable sinners! do ye wish
More than your Lord, and grudge his dying
What your own pride, and not his need, requires?
Souls than these shining gauds he values
Mercy, not sacrifice, his heart desires!"
WHEN Poverty, with mien or shame,
The sense of Pity seeks to touch,
Or, bolder, makes the simple claim
That I have nothing, you have much,—
Believe not either man or book
That bids you close the opening hand,
And with reproving speech or look
Your first and free intent withstand.
It may be that the tale you hear
Of pressing wants and losses borne
Is heaped or colored for your ear,
And tatters for the purpose worn;
But surely Poverty has not
A sadder need than this,
A mask still meaner than her lot,
Compassion's scanty food to share.
It may be that you err to give
What will but tempt to further spoil
Those who in low content would live
On theft of others' time and toil;
Yet sickness may have broke or bent
The active frame or vigorous will,
Or hard occasion may prevent
Their exercise of humble skill.
It may be that the suppliant's life
Has lain on many an evil way
Of foul delight and brutal strife,
And lawless deeds that shun the day;
But how can any gauge of yours
The depth of that temptation try?
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