Rough culture, -- but such trees large | And with the martyr's crown crownest a fruit may bear,

life If but their stocks be of right girth and With much to praise, little to be forgrain.

given.

So he grew up, a destined work to do,
And lived to do it; four long-suffering

years'
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill- report, lived

through, And then he heard the hisses change

to cheers.

MRS. MILES

HYMN TO CHRIST.

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, Thou, who didst stoop below
And took both with the same unwaver- To drain the cup of woe,
ing mood :

Wearing the form of frail mortality, Till, as he came on light, from darkling Thy blessed labors done, days,

Thy crown of victory won, And seemed to touch the goal from Hast passed from earth, - passed to where he stood,

thy throne on high. A felon had, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger

Our eyes behold thee not,

Yet hast thou not forgot prest, And those perplexed and patient eyes

Those who have placed their hope, their

trust, in thee: were dim,

Before thy Father's face Those gaunt, long-la boring limbs were

Thou hast prepared a place, laid to rest!

That where thou art, there may they also

be. The words of mercy were upon his lips,

Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, When this vile murderer brought swift It was no path of flowers, eclipse

Through this dark world of ours, To thoughts of peace on earth, good. Belovéd of the Father, thou didst tread; will to men.

And shall we in dismay

Shrink from the narrow way, The Old World and the New, from sea When clouds and darkness are around it

spread? Utter one voice of sympathy and shame!

O Thou who art our life, Sore heart, so stopped when it at last

Be with us through the strife; beat high;

Was not thy head by earth's fierce temSad life, cut short just as its triumph .

Raise thou our eyes above

To see a Father's love A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck Beam, like a bow of promise, through the before

cloud. By the assassin's hand, whereof men

doubt If more of horror or disgrace they bore; E’en through the awful gloom, But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands Which hovers o'er the tomb, darkly out.

That light of love our guiding star shall

be; Vile hand, that brandest murder on a Our spirits shall not dread strife,

The shadowy way to tread, Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly Friend ! Guardian ! Saviour! which doth striven;

to sea,

pests bowed?

came.

name.

And he who, with the beauty in his heart, So with an equal splendor

Seeking in faultless work immortal The morning sun-rays fall,

youth, With a touch, impartially tender,

Would mould this statue with the finest On the blossoms blooming for all ;

art, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day;

Making the wintry marble glow with

truth, 'Broidered with gold, the Blue;

Should gain the prize. Two sculptors Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

sought the fame;

The prize they craved was an enduring So, when the summer calleth, On forest and field of grain With an equal murmur falleth

Alcamenes soon carved his little best; The cooling drip of the rain;

But Phidias, beneath a a dazzling Under the sod and the dew,

thought Waiting the judgment day; Wet with the rain, the Blue;

That like a bright sun in a cloudless west

Lit up his wide, great soul, with pure Wet with the rain, the Gray.

love wrought

A statue, and its face of changeless stone Sadly, but not with upbraiding,

With calm, far-sighted wisdom towered The generous deed was done;

and shone. In the storm of the years that are fading, No braver battle was won ;

Then to be judged the labors were unUnder the sod and the dew,

veiled; Waiting the judgment day;

But at the marble thought, that by Under the blossoms, the Blue;

degrees Under the garlands, the Gray.

Of hardship Phidias cut, the people railed.

“The lines are coarse; the form too No more shall the war-cry sever,

large,” said these; Or the winding rivers be red;

“And he who sends this rough result of They banish our anger forever

haste When they laurel the graves of our dead! | Sends scorn, and offers insult to our taste.“

JOHN BURROUGHS.

SARAH WOOLSEY.

327

Alcamenes' praised work was lifted high What matter if I stand alone?

Upon the capital where it might stand; I wait with joy the coming years; But there it seemed too small, and 'gainst | My heart shall reap where it has sown, , the sky

And garner up its fruit of tears. Had no proportion from the uplooking land;

The waters know their own and draw So it was lowered, and quickly put aside, The brook that springsin yonder height; And the scorned thought was mounted So flows the good with equal law to be tried.

Unto the soul of pure delight. Surprise swept o'er the faces of the crowd, The stars come nightly to the sky; And changed them as a sudden breeze Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,

The tidal wave unto the sea; may change A field of fickle grass, and long and loud

Can keep my own away from me. Their mingled shouts to see a sight so

strange. The statue stood completed in its place, Each coarse line melted to a line of

SARAH WOOLSEY. grace.

[U. S. A.] So bold, great actions, that are seen too near,

IN THE MIST. Look rash and foolish to unthinking eyes;

SITTING all day in a silver mist, They need the past for distance to ap

In silver silence all the day, pear

Save for the low, soft hiss of In their true grandeur. Let us yet be And the lisp of sands by waters kissed,

spray wise

As the tide draws up the bay. And not too soon our neighbor's deed malign,

Little I hear and nothing I see, For what seems coarse is often good and

Wrapped in that veil by fairies spun; fine.

The solid earth is vanished for me
And the shining hours speed noiselessly,

A woof of shadow and sun.

An unknown bark, from an unknown | Those faces brighten from the years bay,

In rising suns long set in tears; By unknown waters lapped and kissed, Those hearts, — far in the Past they beat,

Shall near me through the spray. Unheard within the morning street.

No flap of sail, no scraping of keel,

A city of the world's gray prime, Shadowy, dim, with a banner dark,

Lost in some desert far from Time, It will hover, will pause, and I shall feel Where noiseless ages, gliding through, A hand which grasps me, and shivering Have only sifted sand and dew, steal

Yet a mysterious hand of man
To the cold strand, and embark.

Lying on all the haunted plan,
The passions of the human heart

Quickening the marble breast of Art, Embark for that far, mysterious realm

Were not more strange to one who first Where the fathomless, trackless waters Upon its ghostly silence burst flow.

Than this vast quiet where the tide Shall I feel a Presence dim, and know of life, upheaved on either side, Thy dear hand, Lord, upon the helm,

Hangs trembling, ready soon to beat Nor be afraid to go?

With human waves the morning street. And through black waves and stormy Ay, soon the glowing morning flood

blast And out of the fog-wreaths, dense and This silent stone, to music won,

Breaks through the charméd solitude : dun,

Shall murmur to the rising sun; Guided by thee, shall the vessel run,

The busy place, in dust and heat,
Gain the fair haven, night being past, Shall rush with wheels and swarm with
And anchor in the sun?

feet;
The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream
Unseen within the morning gleam;
The life shall move, the death be plain;

The bridal throng, the funeral train,
JOHN JAMES PIATT.

Together, face to f?ce, shall meet

And pass within the morning street. (U. S. A.]

THE MORNING STREET.

beat;

ALONE I walk the morning street,

RICHARD W. GILDER.
Filled with the silence vague and sweet :
All seems as strange, as still, as dead,

[U. S. A.] As if unnumbered years had fled,

DAWN.
Letting the noisy Babel lie
Breathless and dumb against the sky;

The night was dark, though sometimes The light wind walks with me alone

a faint star Where the hot day flame-like was blown, A little while a little space made bright. Where the wheels roared, the dust was The night was long and like an iron

bar The dew is in the morning street.

Lay heavy on the land : till o'er the sea

Slowly, within the East, there grew & Where are the restless throngs that pour light Along this mighty corridor

Which half was starlight, and half seemed While the noon shines ?-- the hurrying to be crowd

The herald of a greater.

The pale Whose footsteps make the city loud,

white The myriad faces, --hearts that beat Turned slowly to pale rose, and up the No more in the deserted street?

height Those footsteps in their dreaming maze Of heaven slowly climbed. The gray Cross thresholds of forgotten days;

sea grew

II.

Rose-colored like the sky. A white gull

flew Straight toward the utmost boundary of When next I went that way.

It was an autumn day the East, Where slowly the rose gathered and in- What was it that I heard ?

And what, think you, did I see? creased.

The song of a sweet-voiced bird ? It was as on the opening of a door By one that in his hand a lamp doth Thrilled through with praising prayer.

Nay,-- but the

songs of many, hold,

Of all those voices not any Whose flame is hidden by the garment's Were sad of memory:

fold, The still air moves, the wide room is less And a golden harvest glowed!

And a sea of sunlight flowed, dim.

On my face I fell down there;

I hid my weeping eyes, More bright the East became, the ocean I said: 0 God, thou art wise ! turned

And I thank thee, again and again, Dark and more dark against the bright- For the Sower whose name is Fain.

ening sky,
Sharper against the sky the long sea line.
The hollows of the breakers on the shore
Were green like leaves whereon no sun

doth shino, Though white the outer branches of the WILLIAM BELL SCOTT,

tree. From rose to red the level heaven burned;

THE DANCE. Then sudden, as if a sword fell from on high,

(From "THE WITCH'S BALLAD.") A blade of gold flashed on the horizon's rim.

O, I HAE come from far away,

From a warm land far away,
A southern land ayont the sea,

With sailor lads about the mast
THE SOWER.

Merry and canny and kind to me.

I.

And I hae been to yon town, A SOWER went forth to sow,

To try my luck in yon town: His eyes were wild with woe;

Nort, and Mysie, Elspie too, He crushed the flowers beneath his feet, Right braw we were to pass the gate Nor smelt the perfume, warın and sweet, Wi' gowden clasps on girdles blue. That prayed for pity everywhere. He came to a field that was harried Mysie smiled wi' miming mouth, By iron, and to heaven laid bare :

Innocent mouth, miming mouth;
He shook the seed that he carried Elspie wore her scarlet gown,
O’er that brown and bladeless place. Nort's gray eyes were unco' gleg,
He shook it, as God shakes hail

My Castile comb was like a crown.
Over a doomed land,
When lightnings interlace

We walked abreast all up the street,
The sky and the earth, and his wand Into the roarket up the street:
Of love is a thunder-flail.

Our hair wi' marygolds was wound, Thus did that Sower sow;

Our bodices wi' love-knots laced,
His seed was human blood,

Our merchandise wi' tansy bound.
And tears of women and men.
And I, who near him stood,

Nort had chickens, I had cocks,
Said : When the crop comes, then

Gamesome cocks, loud-crowing cocks; There will be sobbing and sighing, Mysie ducks, and Elspie drakes. Weeping and wailing and crying, For a wee groat or a pound, And a woe that is worse than woe. We lost nae time wi' gives and takes.