It gave new strength, and fearless mood;
And gladiators, fierce and rude,
Mingled it in their daily food;
And he who battled and subdued,
The wreath of fennel wore.

Then in Life's goblet freely press
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the coloured water less,
For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give.

And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live.

The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight,
The blackness of that noonday night,
He asked but the return of sight,
To see his foeman's face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,-for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,

Patient, though sorely tried!

I pledge you in this cup of grief,
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf!
The Battle of our Life is brief,

The alarm, the struggle,—the relief,—
Then sleep we side by side.

BLIND BARTIMEUS.

BLIND Bartimeus at the gates
Of Jericho in darkness waits;

He hears the crowd;-he hears a breath
Say, "It is Christ of Nazareth!"

And calls in tones of agony,
Ἰησοῦ, ἐλέησόν με !*

The thronging multitudes increase;
Blind Bartimeus hold thy peace!
But still, above the noisy crowd,
The beggar's cry is shrill and loud;
Until they say, "He calleth thee;"
Θάρσει, έγειραι Φωνεῖ σε !†

Then saith the Christ, as silent stands

The crowd, "What wilt thou at my hands?"

And he replies, "O give me light!

Rabbi, restore the blind man's sight!"

And Jesus answers, "Taye ‡

Η πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε !

Ye that have eyes, and cannot see,
In darkness and in misery,

Recall those mighty Voices Three,
Ἰησοῦ, ἐλέησόν με!

Θάρσει, έγειραι, ὕπαγε!

Η πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε!

MAIDENHOOD.

MAIDEN! with the meek brown eyes,

In whose orb a shadow lies,

Like the dusk in evening skies!

Iesou eleeson me-Jesus, have mercy on me.

†Tharsei egeirai phonei se-Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee.

Hupage Go thy way. He pistis sou sesöke se-Thy faith hath made thee

whole.

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse !

Deep and still that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then, why pause with indecision,
When bright angels, in thy vision,
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?

O, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands,-Life hath snares:
Care and age come unawares!

Like the swell of some sweet tune,

Morning rises into noon,

May glides onward into June.

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered Birds and blossoms many-numbered;Age, that bough with snows encumbered.

Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.

Bear a lily in thy hand;

Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart, the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.

O that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds, that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;

And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.

IN the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown ; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the

town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood, And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape

lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and

there,

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;

And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than

the sky.

Then, most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, With their strange unearthly changes, rang the melancholy chimes.

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;

And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the day departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain : They who lived in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders,-mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer, Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre.

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old; Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;

Lombard and Venetian merchants, with deep-laden argosies; Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground; I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,

And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold, Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west, Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;

And again the loud alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

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