O backward-looking thought! O pain! For us there is not any silver sound That dry the tender juices in the And put the thunders of the Lord So that no marvel must be, and no Woe worth the knowledge and the What can ye give my poor stained bookish lore Which makes men mummies; weighs out every grain Of that which was miraculous before, And sneers the heart down with the scoffing brain; life in lieu Of this dead cherub which I slew for ye! renew Take back your doubtful wisdom and [dunce, My early foolish freshness of the Woe worth the peering, analytic Whose simple instincts guessed the days heavens at once. CHARLES F. RICHARDSON. AMENDS. THINK not your duty done when, sad and tearful, Your heart recounts its sins, And praying God for pardon, weak and fearful, Its better life begins, Nor rest content when, braver grown and stronger, Your days are sweet and pure, Because you follow evil ways no longer, In Christ's defence secure. Bethink you then, but not with fruit- -That bids the past be still, By influence for ill. Go forth, and dare not rest until the morrow, But, lest it be too late, Seek out the hearts whose weight of sin and sorrow Through you has grown more great. Take gifts to all of love and reparation, Or if it may not be, PATIENCE. IF, when you labor all the day, Then cheerily lie down to rest: O loveless strength! O strengthless love! the Master Whose life shall shape our lives is not as thou: Sweet Friend in peace, strong Saviour in disaster, Our heart of hearts enfolds thine image now! And when the morrow greets your Be Christ's the fair and perfect life Where sit the aged poor; I come creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; In the noisy city street, My pleasant face you'll meet, Cheering the sick at heart Toiling his busy part Silently creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; You cannot see me coming, I come quietly creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; More welcome than the flowers SAMUEL ROGERS. Six Poems entitled by the author, “Reflections." | Cost what they will, such cruel freaks THE PERVERSION OF GREAT GIFTS. ALAS, to our discomfort and his own, Oft are the greatest talents to be found In a fool's keeping. For what else is he, However worldly wise and worldly strong, Who can pervert and to the worst abuse The noblest means to serve the noblest ends? Who can employ the gift of eloquence, That sacred gift, to dazzle and delude; Or, if achievement in the field be his, Climb but to gain a loss, suffering how much, And how much more inflicting! HEART SUPERIOR TO HEAD. THE heart, they say, is wiser than the schools: And well they may. All that is great in thought, That strikes at once as with electric fire, And lifts us, as it were, from earth to heaven, Comes from the heart; and who confesses not Its voice as sacred, nay, almost divine, When inly it declares on what we do, Blaming, approving? Let an erring world Judge as it will, we care not while we stand Acquitted there; and oft, when clouds on clouds Compass us round and not a track appears, Oft is an upright heart the surest guide, Surer and better than the subtlest head; Still with its silent counsels through the dark [From Human Life.] Tracing in vain the footsteps o'er the green; THE PASSAGE FROM BIRTH TO The man himself how altered, not AGE. AND such is Human Life; so, gliding on, It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone! Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange, As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change, As any that the wandering tribes require, Stretched in the desert round their evening fire; As any sung of old in hall or bower To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour! Born in a trance, we wake, observe, inquire; And the green earth, the azure sky admire Of elfin-size,- for ever as we run, We cast a longer shadow in the sun! And now a charm, and now a grace is won! We grow in stature, and in wisdom too! And, as new scenes, new objects rise to view, Think nothing done while aught remains to do. Yet, all forgot, how oft the eyelids close, And from the slack hand drops the gathered rose! How oft, as dead, on the warm turf we lie, While many an emmet comes with curious eye; And on her nest the watchful wren sits by! Nor do we speak or move, or hear or see; So like what once we were, and once again shall be! And say, how soon, where, blithe as innocent, The boy at sunrise carolled as he soul of music slumbers in the shell, Till waked and kindled by the mas ter's spell; |