To show the body's dross, the spirit's worth.

Awake! great spirit of the ages olden! Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre,

And let man's soul be yet again beholden To thee for wings to soar to her desire. O, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendor,

Be no more shamefaced to speak out for Truth,

Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth!

O, prophesy no more the Maker's coming,

Say not his onward footsteps thou

canst hear

Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountain

Above the thunder lifts its silent peak,

And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain,

They all may drink and find the rest they seek.

Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven,

A silence of deep awe and wondering; For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even,

To hear a mortal like an angel sing.

III.

Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking

For who shall bring the Maker's name to light,

To be the voice of that almighty speak ing

Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches

Around the centre fixed of Destiny, Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches

The moving globe of being like a sky; Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer

And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;

This, this is he for whom the world is waiting

To sing the beatings of its mighty heart,

Too long hath it been patient with the grating

Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art.

To him the smiling soul of man shall listen,

Laying awhile its crown of thorns
aside,

And once again in every eye shall glisten
The glory of a nature satisfied.
His verse shall have a great command.
ing motion,

Heaving and swelling with a melody Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,

And all the pure, majestic things that be.

Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence

To make us feel the soul once more sublime,

We are of far too infinite an essence

To rest contented with the lies of

pass,

Or, governed by a boisterous whim,

Drop down and rustle on the glass. One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl Faces the east-wind's searching flaws, And, as about her heart they whirl,

Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. The flat brick walls look cold and bleak,

Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze; Yet dares she not a shelter seek,

Though faint with hunger and disease.

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare,
And, piercing through her garments
thin,
Beats on her shrunken breast, and there
Makes colder the cold heart within.

She lingers where a ruddy glow Streams outward through an open shutter,

Adding more bitterness to woe,

More loneness to desertion utter. One half the cold she had not felt Until she saw this gush of light Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt Its slow way through the deadening night.

She hears a woman's voice within, Singing sweet words her childhood knew,

Outside the porch before the door,
Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,
She lies, no longer foul and poor,
No longer dreary and alone.

Next morning something heavily

Against the opening door did weigh, And there, from sin and sorrow free, A woman on the threshold lay.

A smile upon the wan lips told

That she had found a calm release, And that, from out the want and cold, The song had borne her soul in peace.

For, whom the heart of man shuts out,
Sometimes the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
With silence mid the world's loud din;

And one of his great charities

Is Music, and it doth not scorn To close the lids upon the eyes

Of the polluted and forlorn;

Far was she from her childhood's home,
Farther in guilt had wandered thence,
Yet thither it had bid her come
To die in maiden innocence.

O poor

man's son scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great;

Toil only gives the soul to shine,

And makes rest fragrant and be-
nign;

A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,

Are equal in the earth at last;
Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.

Where there's none that loveth me. On the rock the billow bursteth

And sinks back into the seas, But in vain my spirit thirsteth So to burst and be at ease. Take, O sea! the tender blossom That hath lain against my breast; On thy black and angry bosom It will find a surer rest. Life is vain, and love is hollow,

Ugly death stands there behind, Hate and scorn and hunger follow Him that toileth for his kind." Forth into the night he hurled it, And with bitter smile did mark How the surly tempest whirled it Swift into the hungry dark.

In his tower sits the poet,

Blisses new and strange to him Fill his heart and overflow it

With a wonder sweet and dim. Up the beach the ocean slideth With a whisper of delight, And the moon in silence glideth Through the peaceful blue of night. Rippling o'er the poet's shoulder Flows a maiden's golden hair, Maiden lips, with love grown bolder, Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare. "Life is joy, and love is power, Death all fetters doth unbind, Strength and wisdom only flower When we toil for all our kind. Hope is truth,- the future giveth More than present takes away, And the soul forever liveth

Nearer God from day to day." Not a word the maiden uttered,

Fullest hearts are slow to speak, But a withered rose-leaf fluttered Down upon the poet's cheek.