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RESIGNATION.-SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS.

107

BY THE FIRESIDE.

RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps,

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,--the child of our affection,-
But
gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, By guardian angels led,

Safe frem temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air,

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Behold her growa more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives,

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between,
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete.
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.

Thinking that our remembrance, though un- SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR

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THE OPEN WINDOW.

THE old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.

I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air;
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates,
Wao would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens, They played not in the hall;

But shadow, and silence, and sadness
Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet, familiar tone;
But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone!

And the boy that walked beside me,
He could not understand
Why closer in mine, ah! closer,
I pressed his warm, soft hand!

KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN.

WITLAF, a king of the Saxons, Ere yet his last he breathed, To the merry monks of Croyland

His drinking-horn bequeathed,—

That, whenever they sat at their revels, And drank from the golden bowl, They might remember the donor,

And breathe a prayer for his soul.

So sat they once at Christmas,

And bade the goblet pass;

In their beards the red wine glistened
Like dew-drops in the grass.

They drank to the soul of Witlaf,
They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
Who had preached his holy word."
They drank to the Saints and Martyrs
Of the dismal days of yore,
And as soon as the horn was empty
They remembered one Saint more.

And the reader droned from the pulpit,
Like the murmur of many bees,
The legend of good Saint Guthlac,
And Saint Basil's homilies;

Till the great bells of the convent, From their prison in the tower, Guthlac and Bartholomæus,

Proclaimed the midnight hour.

And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney,
And the Abbot bowed his head,
And the flamelets flapped and flickered,
But the Abbot was stark and dead.

Yet still in his pallid fingers

He clutched the golden bowl, In which, like a pearl dissolving, Had sunk and dissolved his soul.

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PEGASUS IN POUND.
ONCE into a quiet village,
Without haste and without heed,
In the golden prime of morning,
Strayed the poet's winged steed.

It was Autumn, and incessant
Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves,
And, like living coals, the apples

Burned among the withering leaves.

Loud the clamorous bell was ringing
From its belfry gaunt and grim;
"T was the daily call to labor,
Not a triumph meant for him.

Not the less he saw the landscape,
In its gleaming vapor veiled;
Not the less he breathed the odors
That the dying leaves exhaled.

Thus, upon the village common,

By the school-boys he was found;
And the wise men, in their wisdom,
Put him straightway into pound.

Then the sombre village crier,
Ringing loud his brazen beil,
Wandered down the street proclaiming
There was an estray to sell.

And the curious country people, Rich and poor, and young and old, Came in haste to see this wondrous Winged steed, with mane of gold.

Thus the day passed, and the evening Fell, with vapors cold and dim; But it brought no food nor shelter, Brought no straw nor stall, for him.

Patiently, and still expectant,

Looked he through the wooden bars, Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape, Saw the tranquil, patient stars;

Till at length the bell at midnight

Sounded from its dark abode, And, from out a neighboring farm-yard, Loud the cock Alectryon crowed.

Then, with nostrils wide distended, Breaking from his iron chain, And unfolding far his pinions,

To those stars he soared again.

On the morrow, when the village
Woke to all its toil and care,
Lo! the strange steed had departed,
And they knew not when nor where.

But they found, upon the greensward Where his struggling hoofs had trod, Pure and bright, a fountain flowing From the hoof-marks in the sod.

From that hour, the fount unfailing Gladdens the whole region round, Strengthening all who drink its waters, While it soothes them with its sound.

TEGNER'S DRAPA.

I HEARD a voice, that cried, "Balder the Beautiful Is dead, is dead!"

And through the misty air

Passed like the mournful cry Of sunward sailing cranes.

I saw the pallid corpse

Of the dead sun

Borne through the Northern sky. Blasts from Niffelheim

Lifted the sheeted mists

Around him as he passed.

And the voice forever cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.

Balder the Beautiful,
God of the summer sun,
Fairest of all the Gods!
Light from his forehead beamed,
Runes were upon his tongue,
As on the warrior's sword.

All things in earth and air
Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;
Even the plants and stones;
All save the misletoe,
The sacred misletoe!

Hoeder, the blind old God,
Whose feet are shod with silence,
Pierced through that gentle breast
With his sharp spear, by fraud
Made of the misletoe,
The accursed misletoe!

They laid him in his ship,
With horse and harness,
As on a funeral pyre.
Odin placed

A ring upon his finger,
And whispered in his ear.

They launched the burning ship!
It floated far away

Over the misty sea,

Till like the sun it seemed,
Sinking beneath the waves.
Balder returned no more!

So perish the old Gods!
But out of the sea of Time
Rises a new land of song,
Fairer than the old.

Over its meadows green
Walk the young bards and sing.

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O PRECIOUS evenings! all too swiftly sped!
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead!
How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages
Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,
Anticipating all that shall be said!

O happy Reader! having for thy text
The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have
caught

The rarest essence of all human thought!

O happy Poet! by no critic vext!

How must thy listening spirit now rejoice
To be interpreted by such a voice!

THE SINGERS.

GOD sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.

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