I turn my bell-unsummoned feet;

I lay the critic's glass aside,

I tread upon my lettered pride,

And, lowest-seated, testify
To the oneness of humanity;
Confess the universal want,

And share whatever Heaven may grant.
He findeth not who seeks his own,
The soul is lost that's saved alone.
Not on one favored forehead fell
Of old the fire-tongued miracle,
But flamed o'er all the thronging host
The baptism of the Holy Ghost;
Heart answers heart in one desire
The blending lines of prayer aspire ;
'Where, in my name, meet two or three,
Our Lord hath said, 'I there will be!'

"So sometimes comes to soul and sense
The feeling which is evidence
That very near about us lies
The realm of spiritual mysteries.
The sphere of the supernal powers
Impinges on this world of ours.
The low and dark horizon lifts,
To light the scenic terror shifts;
The breath of a diviner air

Blows down the answer of a prayer:-
That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt
A great compassion clasps about,
And law and goodness, love and force,
Are wedded fast beyond divorce.
Then duty leaves to love its task,
The beggar Self forgets to ask ;
With smile of trust and folded hands,
The passive soul in waiting stands
To feel, as flowers the sun and dew,
The One true Life its own renew.

"So, to the calmly gathered thought
The innermost of truth is taught,
The mystery dimly understood,
That love of God is love of good,
And, chiefly, its divinest trace
In Him of Nazareth's holy face;
That to be saved is only this,
Salvation from our selfishness,
From more than elemental fire,
The soul's unsanctified desire,
From sin itself, and not the pain
That warns us of its chafing chain ;
That worship's deeper meaning lies
In mercy, and not sacrifice,
Not proud humilities of sense
And posturing of penitence,

But love's unforced obedience;

That Book and Church and Day are given For man, not God, - for earth, not heaven,

The blessed means to holiest ends,
Not masters, but benignant friends;
That the dear Christ dwells not afar,
The king of some remoter star,
But flamed o'er all the thronging host
The baptism of the Holy Ghost;
Heart answers heart: in one desire
The blending lines of prayer aspire ;
'Where, in my name, meet two or three,'
Our Lord hath said, 'I there will be!'
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

A PRAYER FOR LIFE.

O FATHER, let me not die young! Earth's beauty asks a heart and tongue To give true love and praises to her worth; Her sins and judgment-sufferings call For fearless martyrs to redeem thy Earth From her disastrous fall.

For though her summer hills and vales might

seem

The fair creation of a poet's dream,

Ay, of the Highest Poet,

Whose wordless rhythms are chanted by the

gyres

Of constellate star-choirs,

That with deep melody flow and overflow it,

The sweet Earth, very sweet, despite The rank grave-smell forever drifting in Among the odors from her censers white Of wave-swung lilies and of wind-swung roses, The Earth sad-sweet is deeply attaint with sin!

The pure air, which encloses
Her and her starry kin,

Still shudders with the unspent palpitating
Of a great Curse, that to its utmost shore
Thrills with a deadly shiver
Which has not ceased to quiver
Down all the ages, nathless the strong beating
Of Angel-wings, and the defiant roar

Of Earth's Titanic thunders.

Fair and sad,

In sin and beauty, our beloved Earth Has need of all her sons to make her glad; Has need of martyrs to refire the hearth Of her quenched altars, of heroic men With freedom's sword, or Truth's supernal pen, To shape the worn-out mold of nobleness again. And she has need of Poets who can string Their harps with steel to catch the lightning's

fire,

And pour her thunders from the clanging wire, To cheer the hero, mingling with his cheer, Arouse the laggard in the battle's rear,

Yet never an age, when God has need of him,
Shall want its Man, predestined by that need,
To pour his life in fiery word or deed,
The strong Archangel of the Elohim!

Earth's hollow want is prophet of his coming:
In the low murmur of her famished cry,
And heavy sobs breathed up despairingly,
Ye hear the near invisible humming
Of his wide wings that fan the lurid sky
Into cool ripples of new life and hope,
While far in its dissolving ether ope
Deeps beyond deeps, of sapphire calm, to cheer
With Sabbath gleams the troubled Now and
Here.

Father! thy will be done!

Holy and righteous One! Though the reluctant years

white,

Nor round my shoulders turn the golden light
Of my thick locks to wisdom's royal ermine :
Yet by the solitary tears,
Deeper than joy or sorrow, by the thrill,
Higher than hope or terror, whose quick germin,
In those hot tears to sudden vigor sprung,
Sheds, even now, the fruits of graver age,
By the long wrestle in which inward ill
Fell like a trampled viper to the ground,

By all that lifts me o'er my outward peers
To that supernal stage

The road,

Nor fear to miss
although so very long it be,
While led by thee?

Step after step, feeling thee close beside me,
Although unseen,

Through thorns, through flowers, whether the tempest hide thee,

Or heavens serene,

Assured thy faithfulness cannot betray, Thy love decay.

Thy counsels wise;

Along the path a deepening shadow stealeth,

No voice replies

To all my questioning thought, the time to tell ; And it is well.

Let me keep on, abiding and unfearing
Thy will always,

Through a long century's ripening fruition
Or a short day's;

Thou canst not come too soon; and I can wait
If thou come late.

SUSAN COOLIDGE.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

A BALLAD.

THERE's a legend that's told of a gypsy who dwelt In the lands where the pyramids be;

And her robe was embroidered with stars, and her belt

With devices right wondrous to see; And she lived in the days when our Lord was a child On his mother's immaculate breast;

When he fled from his foes,-when to Egypt exiled, He went down with St. Joseph the blest.

This Egyptian held converse with magic, methinks,
And the future was given to her gaze;
For an obelisk marked her abode, and a sphinx
On her threshold kept vigil always.

She was pensive and ever alone, nor was seen
In the haunts of the dissolute crowd;

With the wine of the palm-tree, with dates newly culled,

All the toil of the day she beguiled; And with song in a language mysterious she lulled On her bosom the wayfaring child.

When the gypsy anon in her Ethiop hand
Took the infant's diminutive palm,

O, 'twas fearful to see how the features she scanned
Of the babe in his slumbers so calm !
Well she noted each mark and each furrow that
crossed

O'er the tracings of destiny's line : "WHENCE CAME YE?" she cried, in astonishment lost,

"FOR THIS CHILD IS OF LINEAGE DIVINE !'

"From the village of Nazareth," Joseph replied,
We have fled from a tyrant whose garment is dyed
"Where we dwelt in the land of the Jew,
In the gore of the children he slew:
We were told to remain till an angel's command
Should appoint us the hour to return ;
But till then we inhabit the foreigners' land,
And in Egypt we make our sojourn."

"Then ye tarry with me," cried the gypsy in joy, "And ye make of my dwelling your home;

I ween,

Or with visitors wrapped in a shroud.

And there came an old man from the desert one day,
With a maid on a mule by that road;
And a child on her bosom reclined, and the way
Led them straight to the gypsy's abode ;
And they seemed to have traveled a wearisome
path,

From thence many, many a league,
From a tyrant's pursuit, from an enemy's wrath,
Spent with toil and o'ercome with fatigue.

And the gypsy came forth from her dwelling, and prayed

That the pilgrims would rest them awhile; And she offered her couch to that delicate maid, Who had come many, many a mile. And she fondled the babe with affection's caress, And she begged the old man would repose; "Here the stranger," she said, ever finds free

access,

And the wanderer balm for his woes.

Then her guests from the glare of the noonday she led

To a seat in her grotto so cool ;

Where she spread them a banquet of fruits, and

a shed,

With a manger, was found for the mule;

(Blessed hope of the Gentiles !) would come. And she kissed both the feet of the infant and knelt, And adored him at once; then a smile

Lit the face of his mother, who cheerfully dwelt

With her host on the banks of the Nile. FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER PROUT).

BURIAL OF MOSES.

"And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day." Deut. xxxiv. 6.

By Nebo's lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave;
But no man built that sepulcher,
And no man saw it e'er;

For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
Yet no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth:
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun;

He spoke of trouble, pain, and toil, Endured but for a little while

In patience, faith, and love, Sure, in God's own good time, to be Exchanged for an eternity

Of happiness above.

Then, as the spirit ebbed away,
He raised his hands and eyes to pray

That peaceful it might pass;
And then the orphans' sobs alone
Were heard, and they knelt, every one,
Close round on the green grass.

Such was the sight their wandering eyes
Beheld, in heart-struck, mute surprise,
Who reined their coursers back,
Just as they found the long astray,
Who, in the heat of chase that day,
Had wandered from their track.

But each man reined his pawing steed, And lighted down, as if agreed,

In silence at his side; And there, uncovered all, they stood, It was a wholesome sight and good That day for mortal pride.

For of the noblest of the land
Was that deep-hushed, bareheaded band;
And, central in the ring,

By that dead pauper on the ground,
Her ragged orphans clinging round,
Knelt their anointed king.

ROBERT and CAROLINE SOUTHEY.

THE RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS.

He was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun ;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks ;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation
A godly, thorough Reformation,
Which always must be carried on
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;