Rome, listening at her altars to the cry

Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell

Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell

And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high,

Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky,

"Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!"

What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black

As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?

Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays

His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase

And saintly posture, gives to God the praise

And honor of the monstrous progeny. What marvel, then, in our own time to

see

His old devices, smoothly acted o’er,

Of Hope against three million souls of

men,

Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed, and then, With uprolled eyeballs and on bended

knee, Whining a prayer for help to hide the key!

THE VOICES.

"WHY urge the long, unequal fight, Since Truth has fallen in the street, Or lift anew the trampled light, Quenched by the heedless million's feet?

"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake The fools who know not ill from good; Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take

Thine ease among the multitude.

"Live out thyself; with others share Thy proper life no more; assume The unconcern of sun and air,

For life or death, or blight or bloom. "The mountain pine looks calmly on The fires that scourge the plains below,

In my dream, methought I trod,
Yesternight, a mountain road;
Narrow as Al Sirat's span,
High as eagle's flight, it ran.

Overhead, a roof of cloud

With its weight of thunder bowed;
Underneath, to left and right,
Blankness and abysmal night.

Here and there a wild-flower blushed,
Now and then a bird-song gushed;
Now and then, through rifts of shade,
Stars shone out, and sunbeams played.

But the goodly company,
Walking in that path with me,
One by one the brink o'erslid,
One by one the darkness hid."

Some with wailing and lament,
Some with cheerful courage went;
But, of all who smiled or mourned,
Never one to us returned.

Anxiously, with eye and ear, Questioning that shadow drear, Never hand in token stirred, Never answering voice I heard!

Steeper, darker !-lo! I felt From my feet the pathway melt. Swallowed by the black despair, And the hungry jaws of air,

Past the stony-throated caves, Strangled by the wash of waves, Past the splintered crags, I sank On a green and flowery bank,

Soft as fall of thistle-down, Lightly as a cloud is blown, Soothingly as childhood pressed To the bosom of its rest.

Of the sharp-horned rocks instead, Green the grassy meadows spread, Bright with waters singing by Trees that propped a golden sky.

Painless, trustful, sorrow-free,
Old lost faces welcomed me,
With whose sweetness of content
Still expectant hope was blent.

Waking while the dawning gray
Slowly brightened into day,
Pondering that vision fled,
Thus unto myself I said :-

195

"Steep, and hung with clouds of strife,
Is our narrow path of life;
And our death the dreaded fall
Through the dark, awaiting all.

"So, with painful steps we climb
Up the dizzy ways of time,
Ever in the shadow shed
By the forecast of our dread..
"Dread of mystery solved alone,
Of the untried and unknown;
Yet the end thereof may seem
Like the falling of my dream.

"And this heart-consuming care,
All our fears of here or there,
Change and absence, loss and death,
Prove but simple lack of faith.”

Thou, O Most Compassionate!
Who didst stoop to our estate,
Drinking of the cup we drain,
Treading in our path of pain,

Through the doubt and mystery,
Grant to us thy steps to see,
And the grace to draw from thence
Larger hope and confidence.

Show thy vacant tomb, and let,
As of old, the angels sit,
Whispering, by its open door :
"Fear not! He hath gone before!"

THE BAREFOOT BOY.

BLESSINGS on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! With thy turned-up pantaloons, And thy merry whistled tunes; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill; With the sunshine on thy face, Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace : From my heart I give thee joy,

O for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chase, Of the wild-flower's time and place, Flight of fowl and habitude Of the tenants of the wood; How the tortoise bears his shell, How the woodchuck digs his cell, And the ground-mole sinks his well; How the robin feeds her young, How the oriole's nest is hung; Where the whitest lilies blow, Where the freshest berries grow, Where the groundnut trails its vine, Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet artisans ! For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks; Hand in hand with her he walks, Face to face with her he talks, Part and parcel of her joy, Blessings on the barefoot boy!

O for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.

I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides !
Still as my horizon grew,

Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

O for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread, Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch: pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man, Live and laugh, as boyhood can! Though the flinty slopes be hard, Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew; Every evening from thy feet Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, Lose the freedom of the sod, Like a colt's for work be shod, Made to tread the mills of toil, Up and down in ceaseless moil : Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground; Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin. Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy, Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

FLOWERS IN WINTER.

PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE.

How strange to greet, this frosty morn,
In graceful counterfeit of flowers,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its flower - sown home,

The lights and shades, the purple stains,

And golden hues of bloom!