Children clinging,
Round them springing,

Are they a blessing?
Heirs of hunger!

Their case if younger

More distressing.

Find they pity

In the city

From those wealthy born?

Oft defiling,

Oft reviling,

And bitter scorn!

Jesus forgive

Us that we live

And thus treat thee!

Feed, clothe thee not!

Whose sufferings bought

Our liberty!

LINES ON AN "ECCE HOMO."

With thorn-crowned head,

O Thou of weary tread,

Walking the way of sadness and of tears;

With downcast brow

Bent 'neath men's insults low,

Bearing in life's young prime the weight of years,—

Thou could'st not brook,—
O saddened gaze-to look,
Upon the face of vile, ungrateful men.
Few sympathize;

Why should'st thou raise thine eyes?
Or wish to tread life's weary round again?

O sad, sad face!

On thee, the lingering gaze

Recalls a woe no mortal man could bear!
And from Thy lips,

That all man's hatred sip,

Comes forth "Forgive !" that more than God-like

prayer.

THE OLD TOWN PUMP.

Take not away the old town pump !

In the dusty streets it tells of the streams Where the wild birds sing and the squirrels jump, And the sun through the trees sends softened beams, Take not away the old town pump!

When children stop in the dusty street,
Weary and warm with their run from school,
Their lips bend down to the waters sweet,
As strawberries bend o'er the marshy pool.

Take not away the old town pump!

There the dog may run to slake his thirst,
Nor seek a stream till they call him mad!
There the panting horse and ox athirst
May stand and drink, and to rest be glad!
Take not away the old town pump.

There the poor and needy may freely come
At morn and eve their pitchers to fill
(Would the way were nearer many a home !)
Nor pay rich corporations a bill.

Take not away the old town pump!

When bells ring out at dead of night,
And high the lurid flames ascend,
None call the old town pump a fright,
But run to it, in need, a friend.

Take not away the old town pump !

Take not away the old town pump,

But bid it adorn the place where it stands !

A graceful structure instead of a stump
Of an upright post with its awkward hands.
Take not away the old town pump!

We should miss the pictures it gives the street
The oxen, the horses, the loads of hay,
The "give me to drink," the friends that greet,
The weary trav'lers, the children at play.

Take not away the old town pump !

LINES.

[On the marble statue of a child, by Græf, on exhibition at Williams and Everett's, Boston.]

Smile on the marble face,

Beaming with baby grace,

Genius hath left its trace
Noble and grand.

Picture of Innocence !

Far from the realms of sense

How our thoughts rise at true Genius' command!

Smile that soon fleets away
Genius here bade to stay,

On the dead marble play,-
Life, life in death.

'Tis not the body's form,

Though seeming lithe and warm,

But the soul sending through dull rock its breath!

So from earth's common things,

Touched by Art's hand, there springs

Beauty, to find its wings

Unknown before ;

Smiles from the rocks break forth,

Like sunlight on the earth,

Saying, mean things have worth

Touched by God's hand, to bid us adore!

Skeptic, come stand and gaze!
If man's frail hand can raise
Forms thus to speak his praise
And show his power,

Could not God call to birth

E'en from the dust of earth,

Man, even man, in Creation's first hour?

LINES.

[On the painting on exhibition at Williams and Everett's, Boston, of a dead Soldier lying on a snowy field, still holding the Flag upright in his cold hand.]

Cold was his snowy bed,

No sound of martial tread,

No war-clad legions thickly camped around ;

Yet on the lonely air

Still waved the standard there,

Within his ice-locked hand how firmly bound!

On went the flying host,

Rider and steed were lost,

The cold as pitiless as mail-clad foe;
So sank they one by one,―

Their earthly work was done,

Their monument the white uprising snow.