Two paths lead upward from below,

And angels wait above,

Who count each burning life-drop's flow,

Each falling tear of Love.

Though from the Hero's bleeding breast
Her pulses Freedom drew,

Though the white lilies in her crest

Sprang from that scarlet dew,

While Valor's haughty champions wait

Till all their scars are shown,

Love walks unchallenged through the gate,

To sit beside the Throne!

FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL SANITARY

ASSOCIATION.

1860.

WHAT makes the Healing Art divine?
The bitter drug we buy and sell,

The brands that scorch, the blades that shine,
The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell?

Are these thy glories, holiest Art, ·

The trophies that adorn thee best,

Or but thy triumph's meanest part,

Where mortal weakness stands confessed?

We take the arms that Heaven supplies
For Life's long battle with Disease,
Taught by our various need to prize

Our frailest weapons, even these.

But ah! when Science drops her shield

Its peaceful shelter proved in vain And bares her snow-white arm to wield The sad, stern ministry of pain;

When shuddering o'er the fount of life,
She folds her heaven-anointed wings,

To lift unmoved the glittering knife
That searches all its crimson springs;

When, faithful to her ancient lore,

She thrusts aside her fragrant balm For blistering juice, or cankering ore, And tames them till they cure or calm ;

When in her gracious hand are seen

The dregs and scum of earth and seas, Her kindness counting all things clean That lend the sighing sufferer ease;

Though on the field that Death has won, She saves some stragglers in retreat ; These single acts of mercy done

Are but confessions of defeat.

NATIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIATION.

What though our tempered poisons save
Some wrecks of life from aches and ails:
Those grand specifics Nature gave

Were never poised by weights or scales!

God lent his creatures light and air,

And waters open to the skies; Man locks him in a stifling lair,

And wonders why his brother dies!

In vain our pitying tears are shed,
In vain we rear the sheltering pile
Where Art weeds out from bed to bed
The plagues we planted by the mile!

Be that the glory of the past;

With these our sacred toils begin : So flies in tatters from its mast

The yellow flag of sloth and sin,

And lo! the starry folds reveal

The blazoned truth we hold so dear:

243

MUSA.

O MY lost Beauty! — hast thou folded quite

Thy wings of morning light

Beyond those iron gates

Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,

And Age upon his mound of ashes waits

To chill our fiery dreams,

Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,

Whose flowers are silvered hair!

Have I not loved thee long,

Though my young lips have often done thee wrong, And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?

Ah, wilt thou yet return,

Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?