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Rough culture,

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but such trees large | And with the martyr's crown crownest a fruit may bear,

If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.

So he grew up, a destined work to do, And lived to do it; four long-suffering years'

Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,

And then he heard the hisses change to cheers.

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life

With much to praise, little to be forgiven.

MRS. MILES.

HYMN TO CHRIST.

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O Thou who art our life,

Be with us through the strife;
Was not thy head by earth's fierce tem-
pests bowed?

Raise thou our eyes above
To see a Father's love

A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck | Beam, like a bow of promise, through the

before

By the assassin's hand, whereof men

doubt

If more of horror or disgrace they bore; But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out.

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a

strife,

striven;

cloud.

E'en through the awful gloom,
Which hovers o'er the tomb,

That light of love our guiding star shall
be;

Our spirits shall not dread
The shadowy way to tread,

Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly Friend! Guardian! Saviour! which doth

lead to thee!

F. M. FINCH.

[U. s. A.]

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day ;-
Under the one, the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;-
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.

So with an equal splendor
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch, impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;-
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;-
'Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth, On forest and field of grain With an equal murmur falleth The cooling drip of the rain;Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day;Wet with the rain, the Blue; Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;

In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;-
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever

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When they laurel the graves of our dead!! Sends scorn, and offers insult to our taste.*

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Those faces brighten from the years
In rising suns long set in tears;
Those hearts, far in the Past they beat,
Unheard within the morning street.

A city of the world's gray prime,
Lost in some desert far from Time,
Where noiseless ages, gliding through,
Have only sifted sand and dew,
Yet a mysterious hand of man
Lying on all the haunted plan,
The passions of the human heart
Quickening the marble breast of Art,
Were not more strange to one who first
Upon its ghostly silence burst
Than this vast quiet where the tide
Of life, upheaved on either side,
Hangs trembling, ready soon to beat
With human waves the morning street.
Ay, soon the glowing morning flood
This silent stone, to music won,
Breaks through the charmed solitude:
Shall murmur to the rising sun;
The busy place, in dust and heat,
Shall rush with wheels and swarm with
feet;

The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream
Unseen within the morning gleam;
The life shall move, the death be plain;
The bridal throng, the funeral train,
Together, face to free, shall meet
And pass within the morning street.

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From rose to red the level heaven burned; Then sudden, as if a sword fell from on high,

A blade of gold flashed on the horizon's rim.

THE SOWER.

I.

A SOWER went forth to sow,
His eyes were wild with woe;
He crushed the flowers beneath his feet,
Nor smelt the perfume, warm and sweet,
That prayed for pity everywhere.
He came to a field that was harried
By iron, and to heaven laid bare:
He shook the seed that he carried
O'er that brown and bladeless place.
He shook it, as God shakes hail
Over a doomed land,
When lightnings interlace
The sky and the earth, and his wand
Of love is a thunder-flail.

Thus did that Sower sow;
His seed was human blood,
And tears of women and men.
And I, who near him stood,
Said: When the crop comes, then
There will be sobbing and sighing,
Weeping and wailing and crying,
And a woe that is worse than woe.

II.

It was an autumn day
When next I went that way.
What was it that I heard?
And what, think you, did I see?

329

The song of a sweet-voiced bird?
Thrilled through with praising prayer.
but the songs of many,
Nay,
Were sad of memory:
Of all those voices not any

And a sea of sunlight flowed,
And a golden harvest glowed!

On my face I fell down there;
I hid my weeping eyes,

I said: O God, thou art wise!
And I thank thee, again and again,
For the Sower whose name is Fain.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.

THE DANCE.

(From "THE WITCH'S BALLAD."} O, I HAE come from far away,

From a warm land far away,
A southern land ayont the sea,
With sailor lads about the mast
Merry and canny and kind to me.

And I hae been to yon town,

To try my luck in yon town: Nort, and Mysie, Elspie too, Right braw we were to pass the gate Wi' gowden clasps on girdles blue.

Mysie smiled wi' miming mouth,

Innocent mouth, miming mouth; Elspie wore her scarlet gown, Nort's gray eyes were unco' gleg, My Castile comb was like a crown.

We walked abreast all up the street, Into the market up the street: Our hair wi' marygolds was wound, Our bodices wi' love-knots laced, Our merchandise wi' tansy bound.

Nort had chickens, I had cocks,

Gamesome cocks, loud-crowing cocks; Mysie ducks, and Elspie drakes. For a wee groat or a pound,

We lost nae time wi' gives and takes.

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