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
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope,
And realize our longing.

Oh! let us hope that, to our praise
Good God not only reckons
The moments when we tread His ways,
But when the spirit beckons--
That some slight good is also wrought
Beyond self-satisfaction.

When we were simply good in thought,
Howe'er we fail in action.

-James Russell Lowell.

IS there for 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;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp-
The man's the gowd for a' that!

What though on hamely fare we dine

Wear hodden gray, and a' that;

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that!

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, and a' that,

The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' man for a' that!

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,
A marquis, duke, and a' that:
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Their dignities, and a' that;
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
Are higher ranks than 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' that-
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

'WAS growin' dark so terrible fasht,

'TW

Whin through a town up the mountain there pashed

A broth of a boy, to his neck in the shnow;

As he walked, his shillaleh he swung to and fro,
Saying: "It's up to the top I am bound for to go,
Be jabbers!"

He looked mortal sad, and his eye was as bright
As a fire of turf on a cowld winther night;
And niver a word that he said could ye tell
As he opened his mouth and let out a yell,
"It's up till the top of the mountain I'll go,
Onless covered up wid this bodthersome shnow,
Be jabbers!"

Through the windows he saw, as he thraveled along,
The light of the candles and fires so warm,
But a big chunk of ice hung over his head;
Wid a shnivel and groan, "By St. Patrick!" he said,
"It's up to the very tip-top I will rush,

And then if it falls, it's not meself it'll crush,

Be jabbers!"

"Whisht a bit," said an owld man, whose hair was white
As the shnow that fell down on that miserable night;
"Shure ye'll fall in the wather, me bit of a lad,
Fur the night is so dark and the walkin' is bad"
Bedad! he'd not lisht to a word that was said,
But he'd go to the top, if he went on his head,
Be jabbers!

A bright, buxom young girl, such as likes to be kissed,
Axed him wouldn' he stop, and how could he resist?
So shnapping his fingers and winking his eye,

While shmiling upon her, he made this reply

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,
Its inn of rest; and craving still must seek
The food of its affections-still must slake
Its constant thirst of what is fresh and pure
And pleasant to behold.

As for his life the victim pleaded.
"Nay," quoth the sparrow, "you must die,
For you are not so strong as I."

A hawk surprised him at his meal
And in a trice poor Sparrow spitted;
In vain he gasped his last appeal :

"What crime, Sir Hawk, have I committed ?" "Peace," quoth the captor; "you must die, For you are not so strong as I."

Down swooped an eagle, who had spied With grim delight the state of matters; "Release me, king," the victim cried,

"You tear my very flesh to tatters." "Nay," quoth the eagle, "you must die, For you are not so strong as I."

A bullet whistled at the word,

And struck him ere his feast was ended; "Ah, tyrant!" shrieked the dying bird, "To murder him who ne'er offended!" "Oh," quoth the sportsman, "you must die, For you are not so strong as I." --Anonymous.

WH

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,
The mocking gleams that glitter on our ways,
To vanish in one moment of delighting?

Are they stored up in some great solemn bank,
Where time holds for eternity the key?

As the rich hues, that in the westward sank,
May sleep, enshrined beneath the sleeping sea?

Or do they, blended in a gracious breath,
Pervade the atmosphere of common life,
Softening the terror of the doom of death,
Lulling the fret and fever of the strife?

Who knows, who knows? Our darlings from us glide;
Imploring clasp and passionate prayer are vain ;
Our trust betrayed, missed aim, or shattered pride,
The great dumb river sweeps them to the main.
And yet, for something every gift is given,

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

'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 dance 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, shrouded

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 night

mare 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 mys

tic 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.