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Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town,
Gone mad in their joy at the snow's coming down;
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,

With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!

A RESPONSE TO "BEAUTIFUL SNOW."-HANCOCK.

CAST by the bright wings of a seraph-the snow,
From the uppermost heights to the earth below;
Gently enwrapping a star-begemmed spread
O'er homes of the living and graves of the dead,
Radiantly white as the genii of story!
Pure as the saints in their robings of glory!
Whose soft tears of sympathy froze in their fall
For the sin and the curse that are over us all;
Fleecy and light from the olive-hued skies,
As the trailing insignia of paradise;
The one fair perishing thing that is given,
So worlds aglow with the splendor of heaven!

Proud spirit, who told of the height which you fell
Adown "like the snow-flakes from heaven to hell ?”
God made you as fair as the beautiful snow!

He loves you, poor sinner, though you may not know
How deep in that Infinite heart sank your cry
For "shelter" and "rest" of the saint passing by,
Who spurned you, and left you to die in the street,
With a bed and a shroud of the snow and the sleet.
The world has cursed you, yet God has not said
A soul shall be bartered for gold or for bread.

He knows all your erring and horrible woe,

The want and the crime that have maddened you so: All the dearer to him for the strife, and for stain, And purer to-day for repentance and pain!

Made white by His blood, as the beautiful snow
"That falls on a sinner with nowhere to go;"
And sweeter the pardon hard won by the cries
That from magdalen lips went up to the skies.

Oh! beautiful snow, from the filth of the earth,
Swift rises again in its cherubic mirth

In crystalline dew-drops-all glistening bright
As clear shining stars in a heaven of night.

If contrite to the throne of God's mercy you go,

He will make you as pure as the "beautiful snow!"

TO SIGN-OR NOT.

To sign or not to sign, that's the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The flings and arrows of an outraged conscience,
Or to take arms against Intoxication,

And then, by signing, end it. To sign, to live-
Live free-and, by the act, to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand horrid pains
The drunkard's heir to.

Devoutly to be wished.

'T is a consummation

To drink, to die;

To die, perchance, for ever! Oh! how dreadful!
For, in that death, what agony may come,

When Rum has shuffled off this mortal coil.

To sign is to be free:

Who, who could bear the gibes and scorn of men, The drunkard's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of poverty and broken hopes;

The insolence of those that drunkards make,

That seize their all, then spurn them from their doors,
When he might free himself, and live in peace,
Would he but sign the pledge! And who would bear
To groan and sweat beneath a life made weary

By all the awful ills of drunkenness?
We scarcely know,-the fear we may not stand
To our resolutions, true,―the crushing sense
Of degradation that still weighs us down,
Doth make us bear the awful ills we have;
Yet will I sign, and signing, hope to live
Henceforth in freedom and in joyous peace.

THE BRIGHT SIDE.

THERE is many a rest in the road of life,
If we only would stop to take it,
And many a tone from the better land,
If the querulous heart would wake it!
To the sunny soul that is full of hope,

And whose beautiful trust ne'er faileth,
The grass is green and the flowers are bright,
Though the wintry storm prevaileth.

Better to hope, though the clouds hang low,
And to keep the eyes still lifted;

For the sweet blue sky will soon peep through,
When the ominous clouds are rifted!
There was never a night without a day,
Or an evening without a morning;
And the darkest hour, as the proverb goes,
Is the hour before the dawning.

There is many a gem, in the path of life
Which we pass in our idle pleasure,
That is richer far than the jewelled crown,
Or the miser's hoarded treasure:

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Better to weave in the web of life

A bright and golden filling,

And to do God's will with a ready heart
And hands that are swift and willing,
Than to snap the delicate, slender threads.
Of our curious lives asunder,

And then blame Heaven for the tangled ends,
And sit, and grieve, and wonder.

BINGEN ON THE RHINE.-MRS. NORTON.

A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,

There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's

tears;

But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away,
And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say.
The dying soldier faltered, as he took that comrade's hand,
And he said, "I never more shall see my own, my native land:
Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine,
For I was born at Bingen—at Bingen on the Rhine!

"Tell

my brothers and companions, when they meet and crowd around

To hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard ground, That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done, Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale, beneath the setting sun. And midst the dead and dying were some grown old in wars, The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars: But some were young-and suddenly beheld life's morn decline; And one had come from Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

"Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age, And I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage: For my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild :

And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard,

I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword; And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to

shine,

On the cottage-wall at Bingen-calm Bingen on the Rhine!

"Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head, When the troops are marching home again, with glad and gallant tread;

But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye,
For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die.
And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name

To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame;

And to hang the old sword in its place (my father's sword and mine)

For the honor of old Bingen-dear Bingen on the Rhine!

"There's another-not a sister: in the happy days gone by, You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her

eye;

Too innocent for coquetry-too fond for idle scorning—

Oh! friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest

mourning;

Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risen
My body will be out of pain-my soul be out of prison),
I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

"I saw the blue Rhine sweep along-I heard, or seemed to hear,
The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear;
And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill,
The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and

still;

And her glad blue eyes were on me as we passed with friendly

talk

Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered walk, And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine:

But we'll meet no more at Bingen-loved Bingen on the Rhine!"

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