It is nothing now, ELIZABETH LLOYD HOWELL. When heaven is opening on my sight [U. S. A.] MILTON'S PRAYER IN BLINDNESS. I AM old and blind! less eyes? When airs from paradise refresh my brow, The earth in darkness lies. In a purer clime thought Men point at me as smitten by God's My being fills with rapture, frown; Afflicted and deserted of my kind; Yet I am not cast down. waves of Roll in upon my spirit, - strains sublime Break over me unsought. Give me my lyre! I feel the stirrings of a gift divine: Within my bosom glows unearthly fire, Lit by no skill of mine. C. F. ALEXANDER. THE BURIAL OF MOSES. By Nebo's lonely mountain In a vale in the land of Moab And no man knows that sepulchre, For the angels of God upturned the sod, That was the grandest funeral And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek Noiselessly as the spring-time Perchance the bald old eagle For beast and bird have seen and heard That which man knoweth not. But when the warrior dieth, His comrades in the war, With arms reversed and muffled drum, Follow his funeral car; They show the banners taken, They tell his battles won, And after him lead his masterless steed, While peals the minute-gun. Amid the noblest of the land, And give the bard an honored place And the organ rings and the sweet choir sings Along the emblazoned wall. This was the truest warrior That ever buckled sword, This the most gifted poet On the deathless page, truths half so sage As he wrote down for men. CHRISTMAS HYMN. CALM on the listening ear of night Come Heaven's melodious strains, Where wild Judæa stretches far Her silver-mantled plains! Celestial choirs, from courts above, The answering hills of Palestine And greet, from all their holy heights, On the blue depths of Galilee There comes a holier calm, And Sharon waves, in solemn praise, Her silent groves of palm. Or he deserts us at the hour The fight is all but lost; FREDERIC WILLIAM FABER. And seems to leave us to ourselves RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. 241 ALL'S WELL. SWEET-VOICED Hope, thy fine discourse And pictured scheme To match the fact still want the power; From birth to grave Ask and receive, 't is sweetly said; Yet what to plead for know I not; For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped, Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow Might hark to hear or help to sing, And to his soul The boundless whole "All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith: Mine also is, And aye to thanks returns my thought. Life's gift outruns my fancies far, If I would pray, I've naught to say But this, that God may be God still; For Him to live Is still to give, And sweeter than my wish His will. And drowns the dream In larger stream, As morning drinks the morning star. ROYALTY. THAT regal soul I reverence, in whose eyes Suffices not all worth the city knows To pay that debt which his own heart he owes; For less than level to his bosom rise The low crowd's heaven and stars: above their skies Runneth the road his daily feet have pressed; A loftier heaven he beareth in his breast, And o'er the summits of achieving hies With never a thought of merit or of meed; Choosing divinest labors through a pride Of soul, that holdeth appetite to feed Ever on angel-herbage, naught beside; Nor praises more himself for hero-deed Than stones for weight, or open seas for tide. |