If any, born of kindlier blood,

Should ask, What maiden lies below? Say only this: A tender bud,

That tried to blossom in the snow,

Lies withered where the violets blow.

THE PROMISE.

NOT charity we ask,

Nor yet thy gift refuse;

Please thy light fancy with the easy task Only to look and choose.

The little-heeded toy

That wins thy treasured gold

May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, Of coming years untold.

Heaven rains on every heart,

But there its showers divide,

The drops of mercy choosing as they part The dark or glowing side.

One kindly deed may turn

The fountain of thy soul

To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn Long as its currents roll!

The pleasures thou hast planned,

Where shall their memory be

When the white angel with the freezing hand

Shall sit and watch by thee?

Living, thou dost not live,

If mercy's spring run dry ;

What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give,

Dying, thou shalt not die!

Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe

Have washed thy Master's feet!

March 20, 1859.

THE LIVING TEMPLE.

NOT in the world of light alone,

Where God has built his blazing throne,

Nor yet alone in earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,

And endless isles of sunlit green,

Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
Fired with a new and livelier blush,.
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,

And red with Nature's flame they start

From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,

While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.

See how

yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,

Arches and spirals circling round,

Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear

With music it is heaven to hear.