Dedication.

TO ALL FRIENDS.

A book of many thoughts in mingled measures;
Songs of my Heart, attuned through many a year
From time to time a silent hour to cheer;
Unguarded tell-tales of mine inner pleasures,

High hopes, and joys most deep, and loves most dear;
What welcome shall we find?-Neglect?-Reproof?
A sullen pride that coldly holds aloof?

No, Friends! not such will be my welcome here: From heart to heart I speak, from love to love, With kindly words that kindliness inspire,

Frankly, confidingly: no fear, no fear, But love shall be your greeting to my lyre; For, through the mercies lent me from above,

I warm your hearts, O Friends! with holy fire.

Ballads for the Times,

&c. &c.

One among the Million.

A BALLAD OF COMFORT FOR YOU AND FOR ME.

I.

One among the million, fainting on the way,
Stricken by the heat and the burden of the day,
Look'd to me for comfort, as I heard him say-

"What am I but one among the million?

"Dense are the crowds, and distracting is the strife, A wrestle, and a bustle, and a battle to the knife; Alas! for the woefulness and weariness of life,

To be but as one among the million!

"Everywhere a struggle, and the struggle all for self,
The wickedness of pleasure, or the worthlessness of pelf,
While each stands apart, thrust aside upon the shelf,
A solitary one among the million!

B

"A little wither'd grain amid the heap'd-up threshing-floor, A leaf among the forest, one leaf, and nothing more, A drop of the Atlantic, and a pebble on its shore,

A one small one among the million!

Unprized in my good, and unpitied in my sin,
With none to care for how I fare without me or within,
The tide rushes by, and it stuns me with its din-
Oh, comfort one among the million! "

II.

One among the million! gladly do I stand

To offer thee a brother's heart, and take a brother's hand; Oh, there are thousand thousands left, Elijah's countless band, To comfort all among the million!

Is it not a blessedness, that Christ hath bled for thee;
A wondrous and a glorious thing that He a man could be,
A man, and yet the God of men, to rescue thee and me,
And die for all among the million ?

And is it not a happy thought, that, on the other side
Of time, with all its worrying cares, and all its petty pride,
For "every one that thirsteth" floweth Life's eternal tide
Of joys, for all among the million?

And is it not a gladness, that man, thy brother man,
And woman's gentle sisterhood, and childhood, where it can,
Are eager here to bless thee,-tho' Mammon seems to ban-
To bless, yes, all among the million!

Oh! one among the million! there are millions with thee still, To lift thy load, and cheer thy heart, and help thee up this hill ; Go on, and GOD with thee! He can comfort thee, and will, Ay, thee, and all among the million!

go

Chought-Crystals.

A SONNET FOR A POET'S INNER SELF.

Plunged in my brain, fermenting thick and warm,
Simmer deep thoughts; and shape themselves apace
So soon as Quiet for a little space
Gives Life a rest, and lulls its petty storm:
Then, in some tranquil solitary place,

Whose silence is my music, choice and good,
They shoot out crystallous, in measured form,
Magnetic harmonies:-O Solitude!
Oh, blessed Silence! how most dear to me
Are the sweet soothings of your double
The calm clear heaven wherein my spirit soars,

grace:

Then lures its inmate upward, blythe and free,

Like the glad lark that to the sun outpours

Higher and higher, floods of minstrelsy!

The Truth about Pity.

A BALLAD FOR THE BOUNTIFUL.

En spite of adversity, trouble, and scorn,
And all your philanthropy deems
Wretched and ragged, and vile and forlorn,
No son of misfortune that ever was born
Is really the wretch that he seems.

The hardship your pity so loudly bewails,
Is lighter than sympathy dreams;
For habit makes easy, and hope never fails,
And other men's bitterer hardship avails
To soothe a man more than it seems.

Your sensitive spirit may feel that his fate
With manifold misery teems;

But either by patience those sorrows abate,
Or Dullness himself cannot see that his state
Is half such a wreck as it seems.

Then look lest your tenderness, generous heart,
So lavish of liberal streams,

By pity not only no comfort impart,
But even may aggravate misery's dart,
By showing how jagged it seems.

No! counsel religion, courageous content,
And energy's dutiful schemes,

And how to take humbly the trial that's sent,
And how to win Good, providentially meant
In all that so sorrowful seems.