"There are long, plain spaces, without a break, What it costs respectable pôor to gô, That in life are hard to bear; "But the saddest, happiest time is that The children came to say good night, "AN FOUND DEAD. ANONYMOUS. N unknown man, respectably dressed," That was all that the record said: Wondering pity might guess the rest: One thing was sure, the man was dead. And dead, because he'd no heart to live; A nameless sod to cover his breast! "Respectably dressed?" How little they know Who never have been for money pressed, happy Day after day, "respectably dressed!" The beggars on sidewalks suffer less, They herd all together, clan and clan; Alike and equal in wretchedness, No room for pride between man and man. Nothing to lose by rags or by dirt, More often something is gained instead ; Nothing to fear but bodily hurt, Nothing to hope for save daily bread. But respectable poor have all to lose; For the world to know, means loss and They'd rather die, if they had to choose; Cling, and pretend, and conceal, and hide; Last dollar, last crust, last proud pulse-beat; Starved body, starved soul, hope dead and past; What wonder that any death looks sweet. "An unknown man respectably dressed," Is it fault of ours that the man was dead? wear, and yet I do not rewe en. bar any ен спеков thet DEATH AT THE GOAL. (Suggested by the old legend that one of the Crusaders died of joy on the first sight of Jerusalem.) E sailed across the glittering seas that Hswept In music toward the East; Far off, along the shore the nations wept- For every land was heavy with the grief And half the world was gone to her relief, He heard that sound of anger and of tears, Resolve to right the bitter wrong of years And nearer every day the sunrise glowed Still drawing him swiftly onward, till it showed The land of his desire. He touched the shore, and knelt with tears at length To kiss the sacred strand, Then rose to seek, clad in a solemn strength, Across the low pale hills he took his way, Across the plains of Sharon, where to-day Till at the lighting of the evening fires He saw the promised home of his desires O, city, sorrowful, yet full of grace! With a celestial smile thine altered face The heavy storms of rage and trouble beat Thou hast a deadly wound, yet strangely sweet And beautiful thou art. And thou hast drawn, from all the colder lands Beyond the western sea, Hearts burning for thy wrongs, and eager hands To fight for God and thee. Lift up thy head; thou sittest faint and fairThis sunset on thy brow And see, with what an ecstasy of prayer A true knight greets thee now. Smile on his passionate love, his radiant face, His consecrated sword; In one bright moment let thy matchless grace For as the heart beats wildly at its goal, And, dead, he falls at thy beloved feet, Of joy too high, triumphant love too sweet Dead at the goal! serene and satisfied, But with the exulting face of one who died REMEMBRANCE. NIGHT of death, O Night that bringest all, Night full of dreams and large with promises, O night, that holdest on thy shadowy knees Sleep for all fevers, hope for every thrall! Bring thou to her for whom I wake and call, Bring her, when I am dead, the memories So shall I live again beneath the pall. Of all our perished love, our vanished ease. Then let my face, pale as a waning moon, Rise on thy dark and be again as dear; Let my dead voice find its forgotten tune And strike again as sweetly on her ear As when, upon my lips, one far-off June, Thy name, O Death, she could not brook to hear. A. MARY F. ROBINSON. "SWEET BY-AND-BY." HYMN AND RECITATION. HERE are faces we fondly recall, That have vanished away from this vale, Sing: In the sweet by-and-by, by-and-by, We shall meet on that beautiful shore." There's the form of a beautiful child There's a face that once met me and smiled I see her, in dreams, at the door, Again, where the green ivy clings; I list to her voice while once more She sweetly and joyously sings: Sing: "There's a land that is fairer than day, Recite. Like a lily that blooms by the way, "In the sweet by-and-by, by-and-by, I know on that beautiful shore She is waiting and watching to-day; I shall lay down my burden of woe ago, While I stand in the presence of God: "To our beautiful Father above We will offer the tribute of praise And the blessings that hallow our days. LOSS. HERE is no subject of thought more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in which God permits so often his best gifts to be trodden under foot of men, his richest treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest influences of his Spirit, given but once in the world's history, to be quenched and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often at what they lose. We may see how good rises out of pain and evil; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what good comes of that? The fruit struck to the earth before its ripeness; the glowing life and goodly purpose dissolved away in sudden death; the words, half spoken, choked upon the lips with clay forever; or, stranger than all, the whole majesty of humanity raised to its fullness, and every gift and power necessary for a given purpose, at a given moment, centered in one man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to be refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it most; the city which is not set upon a hill, the candle that giveth light to none that are in the house; these are the heaviest mysteries of this strange world, and, it seems to me, those that mark its curse the most. 8 JOHN RUSKIN. THE GEORGIA VOLUNTEER JAR up the lonely mountain side The moss lay thick beneath my feet, And in the shadow near my path I saw a soldier's grave. The bramble wrestled with the weed Upon the lowly mound; The simple headboard, rudely writ, I raised it with a reverent hand, But time had blotted all but these: "A Georgia Volunteer." I heard the Shenandoah roll I saw the Alleghenies rise Toward the realms of snow; The valley campaign rose to mind, I knew the sleeper had been one Roll, Shenandoah, proudly roll Of Stonewall Jackson's men; In solitude austere, Unknown, unnamed, forgotten, lies ANONYMOUS. IN WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. BENEATH the midnight moon of May, Through dusk on either hand, One sheet of silver spreads the bay, One crescent jet the land; The dark ships mirrored in the stream Their ghostly tresses shake When will the dead world cease to dream? When will the morning break? Beneath a night no longer May, Where only cold stars shine, One glimmering ocean spreads away SPOKEN AFTER SORROW. KNOW of something sweeter than the chime Of fairy bells that run Down mellow winds. Oh fairer than the time But, oh! as many fabled leagues away far Between the sunset and the dawn's last star, And known as yesterday. I know of something better, dearer, too, Its white leaves' tender fold. glow Behind the night and moaning sad and low Across the world, shall make its music dumb, Oh dearer than this earliest rose to come Will be the last to go. I know of something sadder than the nest Of broken eggs you bring. |