His frame was of giant mould,

Which time had partly broke;

His breast, his shoulders, back, and sides;
And his limbs like limbs of oak.

Now the mighty man was low,
His life was fleetly flying;

Old age had bound the village hind,
And the labour-lord lay dying.

Around him strangers moan'd,

Not a kindred face was there.

His friends? The grave had some, and some
Had flown he knew not where.

The daylight stream'd through heaven,

The birds sang on the spray,

And the mower was out with his shining scythe,
Cutting the early hay.

And the hedger was abroad,

And the traveller paced along;

And the bard was stretch'd in the hill's cool shade, Piping his pastoral song.

And the white clouds floated high

In the deep blue fields of air,

And the swallows wheel'd where the insects humm'd And murmur'd everywhere.

H

Far off, on the field of blood,

The red death-balls were flying,

And War drank deep from his warm gore-cup, As the labour-lord lay dying.

Men pass'd along outside;

The rich, the great swept by;
But none inquired for the labour-lord
Who was so soon to die.

He oft had till'd their fields;
He oft had reap'd their grain;
The profits swell'd their shining hoards,
But his the crushing pain.

He gave to them his youth,
His manhood's golden prime;

And now they leave the labour-lord
Wreck'd on the strand of time.

None could compete with him

To cut the granite rock,

To guide the plough, or wield the scythe,
Or sheer the fleecy flock.

He was an honest man

As ever delved the sod:

Misfortune came, and they turn'd him here,

To die alone with God.

O Jesu! save his soul;
Absolve it from all sin;

And let the gates of glory take
His ransom'd spirit in.

KIND WORDS.

'TIS strange to feel, as on we plod
O'er the rough path of life,
What magic's in a few kind words,
Breathed in the midst of strife,
Or murmur'd o'er the sick man's bed,
Or in the orphan's ear,

Or by the hearth so desolate,

The widow's heart to cheer.

Once, winding through the noisy streets,

I met an aged hind ;

His face was shaded o'er with grief,

The reflex of his mind.

I took the stranger by the hand,
And spoke with gentle air:
The clouds departed from his brow,
And sunshine settled there.

By the road-side, beneath a tree
A weary wight sat down,

With garments patch'd and dust-bedimm'd;
His face and hands were brown.

"Man, look to God," a soft voice said,

The day was fading into eve,
When by a rural cot

A pretty maiden, weeping much,
Bewail'd her lonely lot.

A few kind words fell on her ear
Like music from above,

And grief and sorrow, dread and fear,
Were swallow'd up in love.

A poet, sobbing o'er his lyre,

Sat in the hawthorn shade;
Its silent strings were rusted o'er,
And not a note they made.

A kind friend cheer'd him with his voice,

Who through the vale did plod;

The poet sang as if his strain

Dropp'd from the hills of God.

Within a dingy shop, smoke-black,

A husband and a sire,

Whose hands were bronzed with iron toil, Stirr'd up a furnace-fire.

Why does he work so free to-day,
The foremost of his clan?

A few kind words have made him feel
And know himself a man.

Is gold a thing too great for thee?
Are gems beyond thy reach,
To give to cheer thy fellow-man?
Thou hast the gift of speech.
Speak kindly to the weary one,
The erring souls that stray:

So shall thy deeds like sunshine stream
Along life's rough highway.

MARCH.

THE stormy March is come,
Roaring among the trees,
And rushing on his tempest-car
Athwart the blighted leas.

And if the early flower

Its wakening eye unclose,
'Tis blinded by the hurricane,

And withers where it grows.