SIVA.

"Mors janua vitæ."

(1.)

I AM the God of the sensuous fire

That moulds all nature in forms divine; The symbols of death and of man's desire, The springs of change in the world, are mine;

The organs of birth and the circlet of bones, And the light loves carved on the temple

stones.

(2.)

I am the lord of delights and pain,

Of the pest that killeth, of fruitful joys; I rule the currents of heart and vein;

A touch gives passion, a look destroys; In the heat and cold of my lightest breath Is the might incarnate of Lust and Death. (3.)

If a thousand altars stream with blood

Of the victims slain by the chanting priest, Is a great God lured by the savory food?

I reck not of worship, or songs, or feast; But that millions perish, each hour that flies, Is the mystic sign of my sacrifice.

And the strong swift river my shrine below
It runs, like man, its unending course
To the boundless sea from eternal snow;

Mine is the fountain—and mine the force That spurs all nature to ceaseless strife; And my image is Death at the gates of Life. (6.)

In many a legend and many a shape,

In the solemn grove and the crowded street, I am the slayer, whom none escape;

I am Death trod under a fair girl's feet;
I govern the tides of the sentient sea
That ebbs and flows to eternity.

(7.)

And the sum of the thought and the knowledge of man

Is the secret tale that my emblems tell; Do ye seek God's purpose, or trace his plan? Ye may read my doom in your parable; For the circle of life in its flower and its fall Is the writing that runs on my temple wall.

(8.)

O race that labors, and seeks, and strives, With thy faith, thy wisdom, thy hopes and fears,

Where now is the future of myriad lives? Where now is the creed of a thousand

years?

Far as the Western spirit may range,
It finds but the travail of endless change;

(9.)

For the earth is fashioned by countless suns,
And planets wander, and stars are lost,
As the rolling flood of existence runs

From light to shadow, from fire to frost.
Your search is ended, ye hold the keys
Of my inmost ancient mysteries.

(10.)

Now that your hands have lifted the veil,
And the crowd may know what my symbols

mean,

Will not the faces of men turn pale

At the sentence heard, and the vision seen Of strife and sleep, of the soul's brief hour, And the careless tread of unyielding power?

(11.)

Though the world repent of its cruel youth,
And in age grow soft, and its hard law bend,
Ye may spare or slaughter; by rage or ruth
All forms speed on to the far still end;
For the gods who have mercy, who save or
bless,

Are the visions of man in his hopelessness.
(12.)

Let my temples fall, they are dark with age, Let my idols break, they have stood their day;

On the deep hewn stones the primeval sage

Has figured the spells that endure alway; My presence may vanish from river and grove, But I rule forever in Death and Love. National Review.

A. C. LYALL.

THE WITNESSES.

DAY by day in the open meadows,
The cowslips swing their bells of gold;
And the young leaves throng, like merry chil-
dren,

The forest windows grim and old.

Day by day with a blow that strengthens, The sun-god smites the springing corn; Doubly cool are the dews of evening,

Doubly sweet is the breath of morn.

Day by day in the lower pastures,
Heavier mists at twilight fall,

The sheaves stand thick on the short white stubble,

The peaches glow on the orchard wall.

Day by day, over hill and valley,

The snowflakes wing their passage slow, Cold white ghosts of the forest children Dead in the tangled brakes below. Chambers' Journal. ALFRED WOOD.