Longing is God's fresh heavenward will With our poor earthly striving; We quench it, that we may be still Content with merely living. But would we learn that heart's full scope Oh! let us hope that, to our praise When we were simply good in thought, -James Russell Lowell. 'S there for honest poverty Is Honest Poverty. That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by; We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that and a' that, Our toils' obscure, and a' that; What though on hamely fare we dine Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that, The honest man, though e'er sae poor, You see yon birkie ca'd a lord, Wha struts and stares, and a' that, Though hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that; For a' that, and a' that, His riband, sta' and a' that; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that. A king can make a belted knight, Their dignities, and a' that; Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, and a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's coming yet, for a' thatThat man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that. -Robert Burns. 'WAS growin' dark so terrible fasht, 'TWA Paddy's Excelsior. Whin through a town up the mountain there A broth of a boy, to his neck in the shnow; He looked mortal sad, and his eye was as bright Through the windows he saw, as he thraveled along, Be jabbers!" "Whisht a bit," said an owld man, whose hair was white A bright, buxom young girl, such as likes to be kissed, He shtopped all night and he shtopped all day- To be lavin his darlint in the swate honeymoon ? -Paddy. THE HE heart of man, walk it which way it will, Sequestered or frequented, smooth or rough, Down the deep valley amongst tinkling flocks, Or 'mid the clang of trumpets and the march Of clattering ordnance, still must have its halt, Its hour of truce, its instant of repose, W Ungranted. HERE do they go to-the ungranted prayers, The baffled hope, lost love, and wasted yearning; The sweet, vain dreams, the patient slighted cares, Cast on the tireless tide that has no turning? The sleepless nights, the weary, anxious days, The eager joy that blossoms but for blighting, Are they stored up in some great solemn bank, As the rich hues, that in the westward sank, Or do they, blended in a gracious breath, Who knows, who knows? Our darlings from us glide; Through age on age, so priest and poet saith, Cling fast, fond hands; look up, true eyes, to heaven; Through dusk and doubt hold to the saving faith! -Anonymous. IN The Fire-Fiend. N the deepest dearth of midnight, while the sad and solemn swell Still was floating, faintly echoed from the Forest chapel bell Fainting, falteringly floating o'er the sable waves of air That were through the midnight rolling, chafed and billowy with the tolling In my chamber I lay dreaming by the firelight's fitful gleaming, And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart fore-doomed to care! How I revel on the prairie! How I roar among the pines! How I laugh when from the village o'er the snow the red flame shines, And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a life in every breath! How I scream with lambent laughter as I hurl each crackling rafter [higher! Down the fell abyss of fire, until higher! higher! Leap the high priests of my altar in their merry danc of death! "I am monarch of the fire! I am vassal-king of death! World-encircling, with the shadow of its doom upon my breath! With the symbol of hereafter flaming from my fatal face! I command the eternal fire! Higher! higher! higher! higher! Leap my ministering demons, like phantasmagoric lemans Hugging universal nature in their hideous embrace!" Then a somber silence shut me in a solemn, sh ouded sleep, And I slumbered, like an infant in the "Cradle of the Deep," Till the belfry in the forest quivered with the matin stroke, And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-lidded ledges, Shimmered through the russet arches where the light in torn files marches, Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks of oak. Through my ivy casement filtered in a tremulous note From the tall and stately linden where a robin swelled his throat: Querulous, quaker-crested robin, calling quaintly for his mate! Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber nightmare ridden, With the memory of that dire demon in my central fire, On my eye's interior mirror like the shadow of a fate! As the last long lingering echo of the midnight's mystic chime Lifting through the sable billows to the thither shore of time Leaving on the starless silence not a token nor a trace, In a quivering sigh departed; from my couch in fear I started: Started to my feet in terror, for my dreams phantasmal error Painted in the fitful fire, a frightful, fiendish, flaming face! On the red hearth's reddest center, from a blazing knot of oak, 27 Seemed to gibe and grin this phantom when in terror I awoke, And my slumberous eyelids straining as I staggered to the floor, Still in that dread vision seeming, turned my gaze toward the gleaming Hearth, and-there!-oh, God! I saw it! and from out its flaming jaw it Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling stream of gore! Speechless, struck with stony silence, frozen to the floor I stood, Till methought the brain was hissing with that hissing, bubbling blood: Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from those lambent lips: Till the demon seemed to name me: then a wondrous calm o'ercame me, And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a death damp stiff and gluey, And I fell back on my pillow in apparent soul eclipse! Then, as in death's seeming shadow, in the icy pall of fear I lay stricken, came a hoarse and hideous murmur to my ear! Came a murmur like the murmur of assassins in their sleep: Muttering, "Higher! higher! higher! I am demon of the fire! I am arch fiend of the fire! and each blazing roof's my pyre. And my sweetest incense is the blood and tears my victims weep! Ah! the fiendish fire had smoldered to a white and formless heap And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep; [shone, But around its very center where the demon's face had Forked shadows seemed to linger, pointing as with a spectral finger To a Bible, massive golden, on a table carved and olden And I bowed and said, "All power is of God, of God alone." -C. D Gardette. A Musical Instrument. WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, Spreading ruin and scattering ban, He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, Ere he brought it out of the river. High on the shore sat the great god Pan, And hacked and hewed as a great god can He cut it short, did the great god Pan, Then drew the pith like the heart of a man, Steadily from the outside ring, In holes, as he sat by the river. "This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, (Laughed while he sat by the river!) "The only way since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed." Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan, Piercing sweet by the river! Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain- As a reed with the reeds of the river. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A Chain. HE bond that links our soul together, Will it molder and decay, As the long hours pass away? Will it stretch if Fate divide us, When dark and weary hours have tried us? Oh, if it look too poor and slight, Let us break the links to night! It was not forged by mortal hands, Or clasped with golden bars and bands; And is hidden in the shade; While Heaven nor Earth have ever heard, Yet, what no mortal hand could make, And, if to other hearts unknown, And see though slender, it is made Of a most heavy heart of late, And, too, we know and feel again For what God deigns to try with sorrow He means not to decoy to-morrow; But through that fiery trial last, When earthly ties and bonds are past; What slighter things dare not endure Will make our love more safe and pure. |