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.

'S there for honest poverty

Is

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' thatThat man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that.

-Robert Burns.

'WAS growin' dark so terrible fasht,

'TWA

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-
Faith, I meant to kape on till I got to the top,
But, as yer shwate self axed me, I may as well shtop,
Be jabbers!"

He shtopped all night and he shtopped all day-
And ye mustn't be axin whin he did go away;
Fur wouldn't he be a bastely gossoon

To be lavin his darlint in the swate honeymoon ?
Whin the owld man has praties enough and to spare,
Shure he might as well shtay if he's comfortable, there
Be jabbers!

-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,
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.

W

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 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.

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?

Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon fly on the river?

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep, cool bed of the river,
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river,

And hacked and hewed as a great god can
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,
Then notched the poor dry, empty thing

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!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man.

The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain-
For the reed that grows nevermore again

As a reed with the reeds of the river. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

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;
Save thine and mine, no other eyes
The slender link can recognize:
In the bright light it seems to fade,

And is hidden in the shade;

While Heaven nor Earth have ever heard,
Or solemn vow or plighted word.

Yet, what no mortal hand could make,
Nor mortal power can ever break:
What words or vows could never do,
No words or vows can make untrue;

And, if to other hearts unknown,
The dearer and the more our own,
Because too sacred and divine
For other eyes, save thine and mine.

And see though slender, it is made
Of Love and Trust, and can they fade?
While, if too slight it seem, to bear
The breathings of the summer air,
We know that it could bear the weight

Of a most heavy heart of late,
And as each day and hour flew
The stronger for its burthen grew.

And, too, we know and feel again
It has been sanctified by pain;

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.