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ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY.

SONG OF A FELLOW-WORKER.

I FOUND a fellow-worker when I deemed I toiled alone:

My toil was fashioning thought and sound, and his was hewing stone;

I worked in the palace of my brain, he in the common street;

And it seemed his toil was great and hard, while mine was great and sweet.

I said, "O fellow-worker, yea, for I am a worker too,

The heart nigh fails me many a day, but how is it with you?
For while I toil, great tears of joy will sometimes fill my eyes,
And when I form my perfect work, it lives and never dies.

"I carve the marble of pure thought until the thought takes form,
Until it gleams before my soul and makes the world grow warm;
Until there comes the glorious voice and words that seem divine,
And the music reaches all men's hearts and draws them into mine.
"And yet for days it seems my heart shall blossom never more,
And the burden of my loneliness lies on me very sore:
Therefore, O hewer of the stones that pave base human ways,
How canst thou bear the years till death, made of such thankless days ?"

Then he replied: "Ere sunrise, when the pale lips of the day
Sent forth an earnest thrill of breath at warmth of the first ray,

A great thought rose within me, how, while men asleep had lain,

The thousand labors of the world had grown up once again.

"The sun grew on the world, and on my soul the thought grew too,

A great appalling sun, to light my soul the long day through.

I felt the world's whole burden for a moment, then began

With man's gigantic strength to do the labor of one man.

"I went forth hastily, and lo! I met a hundred men,
The worker with the chisel and the worker with the pen,
The restless toilers after good, who sow and never reap.
And one who maketh music for their souls that may not sleep.

"Each passed me with a dauntless look, and my undaunted eyes
Were alinost softened as they passed with tears that strove to rise
At sight of all those labors, and because that every one,
Ay, the greatest, would be greater if my little were undone.

"They passed me, having faith in me, and in our several ways,
Together we began to-day as on the other days:

I felt their mighty hands at work, and, as the days wore through,
Perhaps they felt that even I was helping somewhat too.

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Perhaps they felt, as with those hands they lifted mightily
The burden once more laid upon the world so heavily,
That while they nobly held it as each man can do and bear,
It did not wholly rall my side as though no men were there.

"And so we toil together many a day from morn till night,
I in the lower depths of life, they on the lovely height;
For though the common stones are mine, and they have lofty cares,
Their work begins where this leaves off, and mine is part of theirs.

"And 't is not wholly mine or theirs, I think of through the day,
But the great, eternal thing we make together, I and they;
Far in the sunset I behold a city that man owns,

Made fair with all their nobler toil, built of my common stones.

"Then noonward, as the task grows light with all the labor done,
The single thought of all the day becomes a joyous one;
For, rising in my heart at last where it has lain so long,
It thrills up seeking for a voice, and grows almost a song.

"But when the evening comes, indeed, the words have taken wing,
The thought sings in me still, but I am all too tired to sing:
Therefore, O you my friend, who serve the world with minstrelsy,
Among our fellow-workers' songs make that one song for me.

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THOMAS PARNELL.

HYMN TO CONTENTMENT.

LOVELY, lasting Peace of mind! Sweet delight of human kind! Heavenly-born, and bred on high, To crown the favorites of the sky With more of happiness below, Than victors in a triumph know! Whither, O whither art thou fled, To lay thy meek, contented head? What happy region dost thou please To make the seat of calms and ease? Ambition searches all its sphere Of pomp and state, to meet thee there. Increasing avarice would find Thy presence in its gold enshrined. The bold adventurer ploughs his way Through rocks amidst the foaming

sea

To gain thy love; and then perceives Thou wert not in the rocks and waves. The silent heart, which grief assails, Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,

Sees daisies open, rivers run,

And seeks (as I have vainly done)
Amusing thought; but learns to know
That Solitude's the nurse of woe.
No real happiness is found
In trailing purple o'er the ground:
Or in a soul exalted high,
To range the circuit of the sky,
Converse with stars above, and know
All Nature in its forms below;
The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,
And doubts at last for knowledge
rise.

Lovely, lasting Peace, appear!
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blest,
And man contains it in his breast.
'Twas thus, as under shade I stood,
I sung my wishes to the wood,
And, lost in thought, no more per-
ceived

The branches whisper as they waved;

It seemed as all the quiet place Confessed the presence of her grace. When thus she spoke - "Go rule thy will,

Bid thy wild passions all be still, Know God and bring thy heart to know

The joys which from religion flow: Then every grace shall prove its guest, And I'll be there to crown the rest.

Oh! by yonder mossy seat, In my hours of sweet retreat, Might I thus my soul employ With sense of gratitude and joy: Raised as ancient prophets were, In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;

Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleased and blessed with God alone:
Then while the gardens take my
sight,

With all the colors of delight;
While silver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my song;
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great Source of Nature,
sing.

The sun that walks his airy way, To light the world, and give the day: The moon that shines with borrowed

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THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS.

HUDSON RIVER.

RIVERS that roll most musical in song
Are often lovely to the mind alone:
The wanderer muses, as he moves along
Their barren banks, on glories not their own.

When, to give substance to his boyish dreams, He leaves his own, far countries to survey, Oft must he think, in greeting foreign streams, "Their names alone are beautiful, not they."

If chance he mark the dwindled Arno pour

A tide more meagre than his native Charles; Or views the Rhone when summer's heat is o'er, Subdued and stagnant in the fen of Arles:

Or when he sees the slimy Tiber fling

His sullen tribute at the feet of Rome, Oft to his thought must partial memory bring More noble waves, without renown, at home.

Now let him climb the Catskill, to behold
The lordly Hudson, marching to the main,
And say what bard, in any land of old,

Had such a river to inspire his strain.

Along the Rhine gray battlements and towers
Declare what robbers once the realm possessed;
But here Heaven's handiwork surpasseth ours,
And man has hardly more than built his nest.

No storied castle overawes these heights;
Nor antique arches check the current's play;
Nor mouldering architrave the mind invites
To dream of deities long passed away.

No Gothic buttress, or decaying shaft

Of marble, yellowed by a thousand years, Lifts a great landmark to the little craft,

A summer cloud: that comes and disappears.

But cliffs, unaltered from their primal form
Since the subsiding of the deluge, rise
And hold their savins to the upper storm,
While far below, the skiff securely plies.

Farms, rich not more in meadows than in men
Of Saxon mould, and strong for every toil,
Spread o'er the plain, or scatter through the glen,
Boeotian plenty on a Spartan soil.

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