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Peace dwells not here, this rugged face That has its origin above,

Betrays no spirit of repose; The sullen warrior sole we trace,

The marble man of many woes. Such was his mien when first arose

The thought of that strange tale divine, When hell he peopled with his foes,

The scourge of many a guilty line.

War to the last he waged with all

The tyrant canker-worms of earth; Baron and duke, in hold and hall, Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;

He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth

Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now:
Before his name the nations bow:

His words are parcel of mankind, Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow, The marks have sunk of DANTE's mind.

JOHN G. SAXE.

[U. s. A.]

WISHING.

Of all amusements for the mind,
From logic down to fishing,
There is n't one that you can find
So very cheap as "wishing."
A very choice diversion too,
If we but rightly use it,
And not, as we are apt to do,
Pervert it, and abuse it.

I wish -a common wish, indeed ·
My purse were somewhat fatter,
That I might cheer the child of need,
And not my pride to flatter;
That I might make Oppression reel,
As only gold can make it,
And break the Tyrant's rod of steel,
As only gold can break it.

I wish - that Sympathy and Love, And every human passion

Would come and keep in fashion; That Scorn and Jealousy and Hate, And every base emotion, Were buried fifty fathom deep

Beneath the waves of Ocean!

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SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.

The toiling, suffering sons of earth Are drowned in sweetest slumber.

"The student rests his weary brain,
And waits the fresher morrow;
I ease the patient of his pain,
The mourner of his sorrow,

"I bar the gates where cares abide,
And open Pleasure's portals
To visioned joys; thus, far and wide,
I earn the praise of mortals."

"Alas!" replied the other, "mine Is not a task so grateful; Howe'er to mercy I incline,

To mortals I am hateful.

"They call me 'Kill-joy,' every one,

And speak in sharp detraction

Of all I do; yet have I done
Full many a kindly action."

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"True!" answered Sleep, "but all the The moist winds breathe of crispéd

while

Thine office is berated,

"T is only by the vile and weak

That thou art feared and hated.

"And though thy work on earth has given

To all a shade of sadness; Consider - every saint in heaven Remembers thee with gladness!"

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.

[U. S. A.]

A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN.

I LOVE to wander through the woodlands hoary

In the soft light of an autumnal day, When Summer gathers up her robes of glory,

And like a dream of beauty glides

away.

How through each loved, familiar path she lingers,

Serenely smiling through the golden mist,

leaves and flowers

In the damp hollows of the woodland

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Silent as a sweet wandering thought that only

Shows its bright wings and softly

glides away.

ALFRED B. STREET,

[U. S. A.]

THE SETTLER.

HIS echoing axe the settler swung
Amid the sea-like solitude,

And, rushing, thundering, down were flung

The Titans of the wood;

Loud shrieked the eagle, as he dashed From out his mossy nest, which crashed With its supporting bough,

And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed On the wolf's haunt below.

Rude was the garb, and strong the frame

Of him who plied his ceaseless toil: To form that garb the wild-wood game Contributed their spoil;

The soul that warmed that frame disdained

The tinsel, gaud, and glare, that reigned
Where men their crowds collect;
The simple fur, untrimmed, unstained,
This forest-tamer decked.

The paths which wound mid gorgeous trees,

The stream whose bright lips kissed their flowers,

The winds that swelled their harmonies

Through those sun-hiding bowers, The temple vast, the green arcade, The nestling vale, the grassy glade, Dark cave, and swampy lair: These scenes and sounds najestic made His world, his pleasures, there.

His roof adorned a pleasant spot,

Mid the black logs green glowed the grain,

And herbs and plants the woods knew

not

Throve in the sun and rain. The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell, The low, the bleat, the tinkling bell,

All made a landscape strange, Which was the living chronicle

Of deeds that wrought the change.

The violet sprung at spring's first tinge,
The rose of summer spread its glow,
The maize hung out its autumn fringe,
Rude winter brought his snow;
And still the lone one labored there,

His shout and whistle broke the air, As cheerily he plied

His garden-spade, or drove his share Along the hillock's side.

He marked the fire-storm's blazing flood
Roaring and crackling on its path,
And scorching earth, and melting wood,
Beneath its greedy wrath;

He marked the rapid whirlwind shoot,
Trampling the pine-tree with its foot,

And darkening thick the day
With streaming bough and severed root,
Hurled whizzing on its way.

His gaunt hound yelled, his rifle flashed,
The grim bear hushed his savage growl;
In blood and and foam the panther
gnashed

His fangs, with dying howl;
The fleet deer ceased its flying bound,
Its snarling wolf-foe bit the ground,

And, with its moaning ery,
The beaver sank beneath the wound
Its pond-built Venice by.

Humble the lot, yet his the race,
When Liberty sent forth her cry,
Who thronged in conflict's deadliest
place,

To fight, to bleed, to die! Who cumbered Bunker's height of red, By hope through weary years were led, And witnessed Yorktown's sun Blaze on a nation's banner spread, A nation's freedom won.

CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.

[U. S. A.]

STANZAS.

THOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known,

Mind with mind did never meet;

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I questioned not her peace with God,
Nor pried into her guiltless mind,
Like those unskilful surgeon-priests
Who rack the soul with probings blind.

For I've seen men who meant not ill
Compelling doctrine out of Death,
With Hell and Heaven acutely poised
Upon the turning of a breath;

While agonizing judgments hung
Ev'n on the Saviour's helpful name;
As mild Madonna's form, of old,
A hideous torture-tool became.

I could but say, with faltering voice
And eyes that glanced aside to weep,
"Be strong in faith and hope, my child;
He giveth his beloved sleep.

"And though thou walk the shadowy vale
Whose end we know not, He will aid;
His rod and staff shall stay thy steps.'
"I know it well," she smiled and said.

She knew it well, and knew yet more My deepest hope, though unexprest, The hope that God's appointed sleep But heightens ravishment with rest.

My children, living flowers, shall come And strew with seed this grave of thine, And bid the blushing growths of Spring Thy dreary painted cross entwine.

Thus Faith, cast out of barren creeds, Shall rest in emblems of her own; Beauty still springing from Decay, The cross-wood budding to the crown.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:

"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:

O, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

H. D. THOREAU.
[U. S. A.]
INSPIRATION.

IF with light head erect I sing,
Though all the Muses lend their force,
From my poor love of anything,
The verse is weak and shallow as its

source.

But if with bended neck I grope,
Listening behind me for my wit,
With faith superior to hope,
More anxious to keep back than for
ward it;

Making my soul accomplice there
Unto the flame my heart hath lit,
Then will the verse forever wear,
Time cannot bend the line which God
has writ.

They have builded him an altar in the I hearing get, who had but ears,

evening dews and damps;

And sight, who had but eyes before;

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