Do ye not sometimes long for power to speak To our dull ears, and pierce their shroud of clay

With a loud cry, "Why, then, this grief at death'?

We are the living, you the dead to-day! This truth you soon shall see, dear hearts, yet weak,

In God's bright mirror cleared from mortal breath!"

ART

WOULDST know the artist? Then go seek

Him in his labors. Though he strive
That Nature's voice alone should speak
From page or canvas to the heart,
Yet is it passionately alivo

With his own soul! Of him 't is part !-
This happy failure, this is Art.

BEYOND

ONCE when the wind was on the roof,
And nature seemed to question fate,
A fiery angel, in a dream,
Called on a soul to contemplate.

"Look well about thy precincts, learn
What is thy gain, thy final stock,
Obtained from living day by day."
(Hark, how the winds the clm-trees rock!)

The man's soul cast a glance about.
The place wherein it dwelt was small, -
No vast horizon; every side
Was bounded by a narrow wall.

But well it knew those precincts, well
The carven furniture; the shelf,
Laden with books; the tinted wall
Adorned with pictures of itself,

And of the Father and the Son,
And myriad saints; and then the earth,
With all the senses' arabesques,
That man had planned since
birth.

man had

"Pray IIim to break these walls away." The soul shrank back, with hanging head:

"The moon rides free, the stars dance high,

The sun shines bright: these sights I dread."

The walls seemed riven by a sword; The moon rode free, the wind blew sweet,

The stars danced high; then sunshine lay In glory at the soul's free feet.

It seemed to stand in a wide land;
Around it high the heavens soared;
It seemed to wither with the light,
Yet joy through all its being poured.

Then darkened grew the sky on high,
And suddenly the sunshine fled;
The wind howled shrill; the soul, agbast,
Awoke and trembled on its bed.

me,

A SIMPLE-HEARTED child was IIe,
And He was nothing more;
In summer days, like you and
He played about the door,
Or gathered, where the father toiled,
The shavings from the floor.

Sometimes He lay upon the grass,
The same as you and I,
And saw the hawks above Him pass
Like specks against the sky;
Or, clinging to the gate, He watched
The stranger passing by.

A simple child, and yet, I think,
The bird-folk must have known,
The sparrow and the bobolink,

And claimed Him for their own, They gathered round Him fearlessly When He was all alone.

They must have known and glorified The child who died for men.

AS THE DAY BREAKS

I PRAY you, what's asleep?

The lily-pads, and riffles, and the

reeds;

No longer inward do the waters creep,

No longer outwardly their force recedes, And widowed Night, in blackness wide and deep, Resumes her weeds.

A "RISE"

UNDER the shadows of a cliff
Crowned with a growth of stately pine
An angler moors his rocking skiff
And o'er the ripple casts his line,
And where the darkling current crawls
Like thistle-down the gay lure falls.

Then from the depths a silver gleam
Quick flashes, like a jewel bright,
Up through the waters of the stream
An instant visible to sight -

As lightning cleaves the sombre sky
The black bass rises to the fly.

GERONIMO

BESIDE that tent and under guard
In majesty alone he stands,

As some chained eagle, broken-winged, With eyes that gleam like smouldering brands,

A savage face, streaked o'er with paint,
And coal-black hair in unkempt mane,
Thin, cruel lips, set rigidly, -
A red Apache Tamerlane.

As restless as the desert winds,
Yet here he stands like carven stone,
His raven locks by breezes moved
And backward o'er his shoulders blown;
Silent, yet watchful as he waits
Robed in his strange, barbaric guise,
While here and there go searchingly
The cat-like wanderings of his eyes.

The eagle feather on his head
Is dull with many a bloody stain,
While darkly on his lowering brow
Forever rests the mark of Cain.
Have you but seen a tiger caged
And sullen through his barriers glare?
Mark well his human prototype,
The fierce Apache fettered there.

I FEAR NO POWER A WOMAN
WIELDS

I FEAR no power a woman wields
While I can have the woods and fields,
With comradeship alone of gun,

Gray marsh-wastes and the burning sun.

I sit alone with broken heart, my head
Low bowed, keeping long vigil with my dead.
My soul, unutterably sad, doth yearn
Beyond relief in tears they only burn
My aching eyelids to fall back unshed
Upon the throbbing brain like molten lead,
Making it frenzied. Shall I ever learn
To face you fearlessly, as by my door
You stand with haunting eyes and death-
damp hair,

Through the night-watches, whispering solemnly,

"Behold, I am thy guest forevermore." It chills my soul to know that you are there. Great God, have mercy on my misery!

LOVE

O POWER of Love, O wondrous mystery!
How is my dark illumined by thy light,
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation! yea, I seo
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright,
To-day's proportion to Eternity.
Through thee, my faith in God is made

inore sure,

My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;

The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings

Through thee become more easy to endure. Love-strong I mount, and Heaven's high summit scale;

Through thee, my soul has spread her folded wings.

AT LAST

BEYOND the bourn of mortal death and birth,

Two lovers-parted sorrowing on earth Met in the land of dim and ghostly

space.

Wondering, he gazed on her illumined face:

"Alone you bear the burden now," he

said,

"Of bondage; mine is ended, I am dead."

With rapturous note of victory, she cried, "The Lord of Life be praised! I, too, have died."