THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.

FATHER of all! in every age,

In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou great First Cause, least understood,

Who all my sense confined

Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge Thy foe.

If I am right, Thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart
To find that better way!

And that myself am blind;

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And binding nature fast in fate.
Left free the human will.

What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do,

This, teach me more than hell to shun,

That, more than heaven pursue.

What blessings Thy free bounty gives,

Let me not cast away;

Or impious discontent,

At aught Thy wisdom has denied,

Or aught Thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quickened by Thy breath;
Oh, lead me wheresoe'er I go,

Through this day's life or death!

This day, be bread and peace my lot: All else beneath the sun,

Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.

And let Thy will be done.

To Thee, whose temple is all spaee,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!

One chorus let all Being raise!
All Nature's incense rise!

NATURE'S LESSON.

PAIN is no longer pain when it is past;

And what is all the mirth of yesterday,

More than the yester flush that paled away,

Leaving no trace across the landscape

cast

Whereby to prove its presence

there? The blast

Been frustrate, had not Patience stood between,

Divinely meek: And let us learn that man,

Toiling, enduring, pleading, — calm,

serene,

For those who scorn and slight, is likest God.

THE SHADOW.

its sway,

And rent the lissome ash, the forest

Mild

Strewn sunbeams even. Be thou like
Nature then,
Calmly receptive of all sweet de-
lights,
The while they soothe and strengthen

thee: and when

The wrench of trial comes with swirl and strain,

Think of the still progressive days

and nights,

That blot with equal sweep, both joy and pain.

my eye

curtained ever by its haunting mist;

brow I've kissed,

some dear

My lips grow tremulous as it sweeps me by.

With stress of overmastering agony That faith and reason all in vain

tongue

The broken prayer that inward strength would crave, Dissolves in sobs no soothing can assuage;

And this penumbral gloom, — this heart-cloud flung Around me is, the memory of a grave.

STONEWALL JACKSON'S GRAVE.

A SIMPLE, sodded mound of earth,
Without a line above it;
With only daily votive flowers
To prove that any love it:
The token flag that silently

Each breeze's visit numbers,
Alone keeps martial ward above

The hero's dreamless slumbers.

No name? -no record? Ask the world;

The world has read his story:

There'll come a day when all the aspiration,

Now with such fervor fraught, As lifts to heights of breathless exaltation,

Will seem a thing of naught.

There'll come a day when riches, honor, glory,

Music and song and art,

grief

That leaves in tears its traces, As round their leader crowd again The bronzed and veteran faces? The Old Brigade" he loved so well

The mountain men, who bound

him

With bays of their own winning, cre A tardier fame had crowned him;

The legions who had seen his glance
Across the carnage flashing
And thrilled to catch his ringing
"charge"

Above the volley crashing;·
Who oft had watched the lifted hand,
The inward trust betraying,
And felt their courage grow sublime,
While they beheld him praying!

Rare fame! rare name!- If chanted praise,

With all the world to listen,
If pride that swells a nation's soul,
If foemen's tears that glisten,

story,

Where each has played his part.