When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,

With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife

The proud man's frown, and the base man's fear

The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear And malice, and meanness, and falsehood and folly,

Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;

When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,

And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh

Oh! then there is freedom, and joy and pride,

Afar in the desert alone to ride! There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,

And to bound away with the eagle's speed,

With the death-fraught firelock in my hand

The only law of the desert land!

Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent bush-boy alone by my side,

Away-away from the dwellings of

men,

By the wild deer's haunt, by the buffalo's glen;

By valleys remote where the oriby plays

Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest graze,

And the kùdù and eland unhunted recline

By the skirts of gray forest o'erhung with wild vine!

Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,

And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood.

And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

in the fen where the wild ass is drinking his fill.

Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent bush-boy alone by my side,

O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry

Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively;

And the timorous quagga's shrili whistling neigh

Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray;

Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,

With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;

And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste

Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,

Hieing away to the home of her rest, Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,

Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view

In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.

And the stars turn bright in the mid night sky,

As I sit apart by the desert stone, Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone, "A still small voice" comes through the wild

(Like a father consoling his fretful child),

Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear,

round me sigh,

near!

Do not fear an armèd band; One will fade as others greet thee; Shadows passing through the land.

Do not look at life's long sorrow;

See how small each moment's pain, God will help thee for to-morrow, So each day begin again.

Every hour that fleets so slowly Has its task to do or bear; Luminous the crown, and holy, When each gem is set with care.

Do not linger with regretting,

Or for passing hours despond; Nor, the daily toil forgetting,

Look too eagerly beyond.

Hours are golden links, God's token, Reaching heaven; but one by one Take them, lest the chain be broken Ere the pilgrimage be done.

JUDGE NOT.

JUDGE not; the workings of his brain And of his heart thou canst not see;

What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God's pure light may only be
A scar, brought from some well-won
field,

Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

The look, the air, that frets thy sight,
May be a token, that below
The soul has closed in deadly fight
With some infernal fiery foe,
Whose glance would scorch thy smil-
ing grace,

And cast thee shuddering on thy face!

The fall thou darest to despise,

May be the angel's slackened hand Has suffered it, that he may rise Or, trusting less to earthly things, And take a firmer, surer stand; May henceforth learn to use his wings.

And judge none lost; but wait and see,

The depth of the abyss may be
With hopeful pity, not disdain;

The measure of the height of
pain

And love and glory that may raise
This soul to God in after days!

THANKFULness.

MY GOD, I thank Thee who hast made

The earth so bright;
So full of splendor and of joy,
Beauty and light;

So many glorious things are here,
Noble and right!

I thank Thee, too, that Thou hast made

Joy to abound;

So many gentle thoughts and deeds
Circling us round,

That in the darkest spot of earth
Some love is found.