Long since its strength was given
To making good increase,

And now its soul is turned again
To beauty and to peace.

There in the early springtime

The violets are blue,

The adder-tongues in coats of gold

Are garmented anew.

There bayberry and aster

Are crowded on its floors,

When marching summer halts to praise

The Lord of Out-of-doors.

And there October passes

In gorgeous livery

In purple ash, and crimson oak,

And golden tulip tree.

And when the winds of winter
Their bugle blasts begin,

I watch the white battalions come
To pitch their tents therein.

IN THE TRENCHES

BY F. WHITMORE

We lay among the rifle-pits, above our low heads streaming Bullets, like sleet, with now and then, near by, the vicious

screaming

Of shells that made us hold our breath, till each had burst and blasted

Its ghastly circle, hid in smoke here, there- and while

it lasted,

That murderous fume and fusillade, our hearts were in our

throats;

For hell let loose about us raged, and in those muddy moats The rain that fell was shot and shell, the plash it made was

red,

And all about the long redoubt was garrisoned with dead.

Upon my right a veteran in rasping whispers swore;
Upon my left an Irish lad breathed Ave Marys o'er.
And I? Well, well, I won't aver my lips no murmur
made;

A prayer, long silent, half forgot, stirred them; but something stayed

The sacred words; I locked my lips. "No, no, ah no!" I

thought;

Not now! I'll wait, nor sue for what, unharmed, I left un

sought!

Not so I'll pray, let come what may!" I held my heart and

lips,

And, nerved afresh, I gripped my rifle-stock — when — something clips

Smartly my temple (that long lock conceals the bullet's

mark),

And, sharply stinging, with ears loud-ringing, I dropped into the dark.

When I awoke, the sultry smoke was gone, and over me,
Faint as a cloud against the air, a sweet face tenderly,
A mother-woman's face, was bending, in the evening

'Mid all the fever's burning, wholly safe since they were

there.

Well, oddly, sir, in that dim peace, I let my lips

breathe prayer.

THE LAME PRIEST

BY S. CARLTON

IF the air had not been December's, I should have said there was balm in it. Balm there was, to me, in the sight of the road before me. The first snow of winter had been falling for an hour or more; the barren hill was white with it. What wind there was was behind me, and I stopped to look my fill.

The long slope stretched up till it met the sky, the softly rounded white of it melting into the gray clouds the dove-brown clouds that touched the summit, brooding, infinitely gentle. From my feet led the track, sheer white, where old infrequent wheels had marked two channels for the snow to lie; in the middle a clear filmy brown, not the shadow of a color, but the light of one; and the gray and white and brown of it all was veiled and strange with the blue-gray mist of falling snow. So quiet, so kind, it fell, I could not move for looking at it, though I was not halfway home.

My eyes are not very good. I could not tell what made that brown light in the middle of the track till I was on it, and saw it was only grass standing above the snow; tall, thin, feathery autumn grass, dry and withered. It was so beautiful I was sorry to walk on it.

I stood looking down at it, and then, because I had to get on, lifted my eyes to the skyline. There was something black there, very big against the low sky; very

swift, too, on its feet, for I had scarcely wondered what it was before it had come so close that I saw it was a man, a priest in his black soutane. I never saw any man who moved so fast without running. He was close to me, at my side, passing me even as I thought it.

"You are hurried, father," said I, meaning to be civil. I see few persons in my house, twelve miles from the settlement, and I had my curiosity to know where this strange priest was going. For he was a stranger. "To the churchyard, my brother

to the churchyard," he answered, in a chanting voice, yet not the chanting you hear in churches. He was past me as he spoke five yards past me down the hill.

The churchyard! Yes, there was a burying. Young John Noel was dead these three days. I heard that in the village.

"This priest will be late," I thought, wondering why young John must have two priests to bury him. Father Moore was enough for everyone else. And then I wondered why he had called me "brother."

I turned to watch him down the hill, and saw what I had not seen before. The man was lame. His left foot hirpled, either in trick or infirmity. In the shallow snow his track lay black and uneven where the sound foot had taken the weight. I do not know why, but that black track had a desolate look on the white ground, and the black priest hurrying down the hill looked desolate, too. There was something infinitely lonely, infinitely pathetic in that scurrying figure, indistinct through the falling snow.

I had grown chilled standing, and it made me shiver; or else it was the memory of the gaunt face, the eyes that