When ends life's transient dream,
When death's cold sullen stream

Shall o'er me roll,

Blest Saviour! then in love

Fear and distrust remove;

Oh bear me safe above,

A ransom'd soul!

RAY PALMER.

GOD'S GARDEN.

THE years are flowers and bloom within

Eternity's wide garden;

The rose for joy, the thorn for sin,
The gardener God, to pardon

All wilding growths, to prune, reclaim,
And make them rose-like in His name.

RICHARD BURTON.

THE FREE MIND.

HIGH walls and huge the body may confine,
And iron grates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,

And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways: Yet scorns the immortal mind this base control! No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose : Swifter than light, it flies from pole to pole.

And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes! It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to vale It wanders, plucking honey'd fruits and flowers;

It visits home, to hear the fireside tale,

Or, in sweet converse, pass the joyous hours. 'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,

And, in its watches, wearies every star!

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

OPPORTUNITY.

THIS I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream :-
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's
banner

Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.

A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought," Had I a sword of keener steelThat blue blade that the king's son bears,--but

this

Blunt thing!"-he snapt and flung it from his hand.

And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

MASKS.

A CERTAIN friend of mine, whose daily praise
Was in the mouths of men, once startled me
By what he said when I, like all the rest,
Cried up his virtues and his blameless life.
In this wise speaking: "Stop! you madden me.
You and the crowd but look to what I do,
And when you find me righteous and the law
Ne'er broken, why, you make a loud acclaim,
Holding me guiltless and a perfect man.
But tell me, friend, whether of two is best:
To let a spite eat slowly to the heart,
Making no outward sign, rebelling not,
Or, by an honest spurt of wrathy blood,
To mass the hate of many brooding years
Into one right-arm blow, and so be quits ?
To speak in terms immaculate and nice,

Yet curse in speechless thoughts, to clean for

swear

All lewdness, yet go lusting secretly?

To render weight for weight, yet grudge the coin
Flung to a beggar-lad-in brief, to find

My soul the nesting-place for divers sins,
And still walk on in smug and seemly guise?
I tell thee, there are times I hear a voice
Say very clear, though softly, in myself:
''Twere better if you sinned right openly
Than let the vileness stew within your mind
And pass your properness upon the world,

Knowing the while the arch hypocrisy
That takes the name of angel where, instead,
Devil hits nearer to the truth.' Ah me!"
Here, staying words, he sighed a heavy sigh;
And, musing, on I strolled, debating how
Mere masking tricks us all, and somewhat sad
To learn the inner history of one

Whose common title with the world was saint.

RICHARD BURTON.

MORTIS DIGNITAS.

HERE lies a common man. His horny hands,
Crossed meekly as a maid's upon his breast,
Show marks of toil, and by his general dress
You judge him to have been an artisan.
Doubtless, could all his life be written out,
The story would not thrill nor start a tear;

He worked, laughed, loved, and suffered in his

time,

And now rests peacefully, with upturned face
Whose look belies all struggle in the past.
A homely tale: yet, trust me, I have seen
The greatest of the earth go stately by,
While shouting multitudes beset the way,
With less of awe. The gap between a king

And me, a nameless gazer in the crowd,

Seemed not so wide as that which stretches now Betwixt us two, this dead one and myself.

Untitled, dumb, and deedless, yet he is
Transfigured by a touch from out the skies
Until he wears, with all-unconscious grace,
The strange and sudden Dignity of Death.

RICHARD BUrton.

A BALLADE OF TREES AND THE MASTER.

INTO the woods my Master went,

Clean forspent, forspent.

Into the woods my Master came,

Forspent with love and shame.

But the olives they were not blind to Him,

The little grey leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him

When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,

And He was well content.

Out of the woods my Master came,

Content with death and shame.

When death and shame would woo Him last,

From under the trees they drew Him last; 'Twas on a tree they slew Him--last

When out of the woods He came.

SIDNEY LANIER.