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DAUGHTERS OF TOIL.

And as I mused on later days,

When moved she in her matron duty, A happy mother, in the blaze

Of ripened hope and sunny beauty

I felt the chill-I turned aside

Bleak Desolation's cloud came o'er me;

And Being seemed a troubled tide,

Whose wrecks in darkness swam before me!

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WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.

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Daughters of Toil.

PALE with want and still despair,

And faint with hastening others' gain!

Whose finely fibered natures bear

The double curse of work and pain; Whose days are long with toil unpaid,

And short to meet the crowding want; Whose nights are short for rest delayed, And long for stealthy fears to haunt--

To whom my lady, hearing faint

The distance-muffled cry of need,

Grants, through some alms-dispensing saint,

The cup of water, cold indeed;

The while my lord, pursuing gains

Amid the market's sordid strife,

With wageless labor from your veins

Wrings out the warm, red wine of life,—

What hope for you that better days

Shall climb the yet unreddened east? When famine in the morning slays,

Why look for joy at mid-day feast?

Far shines the Good, and faintly throws
A doubtful gleam through mist and rain;
But evil Darkness presses close

His face against the window-pane.

What hope for you that mansions free
Await in some diviner sphere,
Whose sapphire walls can never be
Devoured, like widows' houses here?
Too close these narrow walls incline,
This slender daylight beams too pale,
For Heaven's all-loving warmth to shine,
Or God's blue tenderness avail.

O brothers! sisters! who would fain
Some balm of healing help apply-
Cheer some one agony of pain,

One note of some despairing cry--
Whose good designs uncertain wait,

By tangled social bands perplexed,
O, read the sacred sentence straight:
Do justice first—love mercy next!

EVANGELINE M. JOHNSON.

M

The Convict Ship.

ORN on the waters !—and purple and bright

Bursts on the billows the flushing of light!

O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,

See the tall vessel goes gallantly on:

Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,

And her pennant streams onward, like hope in the gale! The winds come around her in murmur and song,

And the surges rejoice as they bear her along!

THE CONVICT SHIP.

Upward she points to the golden-edged clouds,
And the sailor sings gayly aloft in the shrouds;
Onward she glides amid ripple and spray,
Over the waters-away and away-

Bright as the visions of youth ere they part,
Passing away like a dream of the heart!
Who-as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, and sunshine on high-
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,
Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below?

Night on the waves !—and the moon is on high,
Hung like a gem on the brow of the sky;
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
Turning the clouds as they pass her to light.—
Look to the waters-asleep on their breast,
Seems not the ship like an island of rest?

Bright and alone on the shadowy main,

Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain!
Who-as she smiles in the silvery light,

Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty-could deem with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is a mansion of sin,
And hearts that are smitten lie bursting within ?
Who, as he watches her silently gliding,
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts that are parted and broken forever?
Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave?

'Tis thus with our life while it passes along, Like a vessel at sea amid sunshine and song! Gayly we glide in the gaze of the world,

With streamers afloat and with canvas unfurled;

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All gladness and glory to wandering eyes-
Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs,
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on--just to cover our tears;
And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know,
Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below:

And the vessel drives on to that desolate shore,

Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er !

THOMAS K. HERVEY.

When from the Heart.
WHEN from the heart where Sorrow sits

Her dusky shadow mounts too high,

And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;
Heed not the gloom that soon shall sink,
My thoughts their dungeon know too well;
Back to my heart the captives shrink,

And bleed within their silent cell.

LORD BYRON.

The Long-Ago.

EYES, which can but ill define

Shapes that rise about and near,

Through the far horizon's line

Stretch a vision free and clear;
Memories, feeble to retrace

Yesterday's immediate flow,

Find a dear familiar face

In each hour of Long-ago.

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THE LONG-AGO.

Follow yon majestic train

Down the slopes of old renown; Knightly forms without disdain,

Sainted heads without a frown:

Emperors of thought and hand
Congregate, a glorious show,
Met from every age and land
In the plains of Long-ago.

As the heart of childhood brings
Something of eternal joy
From its own unsounded springs,
Such as life can scarce destroy;
So, remindful of the prime,
Spirits wandering to and fro,
Rest upon the resting-time
In the peace of Long-ago.

Youthful Hope's religious fire,
When it burns no longer, leaves

Ashes of impure desire

On the altars it bereaves;

But the light that fills the Past
Sheds a still diviner glow,

Ever farther it is cast

O'er the scenes of Long-ago.

Many a growth of pain and care,
Cumbering all the present hour,
Yields, when once transplanted there,
Healthy fruit or pleasant flower.
Thoughts, that hardly flourish here,
Feelings, long have ceased to blow,
Breathe a native atmosphere
In the world of Long-ago.

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