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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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That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;

But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth:
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes back when night is done,

| And had he not high honor, -
The hillside for a pall

To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall,

And the dark rock-pines like tossing
plumes

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek Over his bier to wave,

Grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;
So without sound of music
Or voice of them that wept,

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave?

In that strange grave without a name
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again, O wondrous thought!
Before the judgment-day,

Silently down from the mountain's crown And stand with glory wrapt around

The great procession swept.

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On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life
With the Incarnate Son of God.

O lonely grave in Moab's land!

O dark Beth-Peor's hill!

Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.

God hath his mysteries of grace,
Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the hidden
sleep

Of him he loved so well.

E. H. SEARS.

[U. S. A.]

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,

Shed sacred glories there;
And angels, with their sparkling lyres,
Make music on the air.

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply;

And greet, from all their holy heights,
The dayspring from on high.

On the blue depths of Galilee

There comes a holier calm,

And Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm.

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men,

Who once appeared in humblest guise below,

Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain, Aud call thy brethren forth from want and woe,

We look to thee! thy truth is still the Light

Which guides the nations, groping on their way,

Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, Yet hoping ever for the perfect day.

Yes; thou art still the Life, thou art the
Way

The holiest know; Light, Life, the
Way of heaven!

And they who dearest hope and deepest pray

Toil by the Light, Life, Way, which thou hast given.

I do the little I can do,

And leave the rest to thee.

I have no cares, O blessed Will!
For all my cares are thine;
I live in triumph, Lord! for thou
Hast made thy triumphs mine.

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And when it seems no chance or change
From grief can set me free,
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And gayly waits on thee.

Man's weakness waiting upon God

Its end can never miss,
For men on earth no work can do
More angel-like than this.

He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost;
God's will is sweetest to him when
It triumphs at his cost.

Ill that he blesses is our good,

And unblest good is ill;

And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be his sweet Will!

THE RIGHT MUST WIN.

O, IT is hard to work for God,
To rise and take his part
Upon this battle-field of earth,

And not sometimes lose heart!

He hides himself so wondrously,

As though there were no God; He is least seen when all the powers Of ill are most abroad.

Or he deserts us at the hour The fight is all but lost;

FREDERIC WILLIAM FABER. And seems to leave us to ourselves

[1815-1863.]

THE WILL OF GOD.

I WORSHIP thee, sweet Will of God!
And all thy ways adore,
And every day I live I seem

To love thee more and more.

When obstacles and trials seem Like prison-walls to be,

Just when we need him most.

Ill masters good, good seems to change To ill with greatest ease;

And, worst of all, the good with good

Is at cross-purposes.

Ah! God is other than we think;

His ways are far above, Far beyond reason's height, and reached Only by childlike love.

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