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THE HUMAN HEART.

Thou hast been call'd, when thou hast raised to

heaven

Thy suppliant hands, in vain and passionate grief; When some young blessing, which thy God had given, The chains of mortal flesh and clay hath riven, And faded from thee like an autumn leaf!

Thou hast been call'd, when by some early grave
Thou stoodest, yearning for what might not be,
Moaning above thy beautiful and brave,

And murmuring against the God that gave,
Because He claimed His gift again from thee

Thou hast been call'd, when the proud organ's peal
Hath thrilled thy heart with its majestic sound;
Taught each strung fibre quiv'ringly to feel,
Bid the dim tear-drop from thy lashes steal,
And the loud passionate sob break silence round.

Yea, oft hast thou been call'd! and often now
The "still small voice" doth whisper thee of God;
Bidding thee smooth thy dark and sullen brow,
And from thy lip the prayer repentant flow,

Which may not rise unheard to His abode.

THE HUMAN HEART.

Yet empty is thy place amid the choirs

Of God's young angels in their peace and love; Vainly with zeal thy soul a moment fires, Since, clinging still to earth and earth's desires,

Thou losest sight of things which are above.

Oh, hear it, sinner! hear that warning voice

Which vainly yet hath struck thy hardened ear! Hear it, while lingering death allows the choice, And the glad troops of angels may rejoice

Over the sinner's warm repentant tear!

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Lest when thy struggling soul would quit the frame
Which bound it here, by sin and passion toss'd,
Thy Saviour's voice shall wake despairing shame,
How often have I sought thee to reclaim !—
How often-but thou wouldst not-and art lost!"

HON. MRS. NORTON.

DEDALUS.

W

AIL for Dædalus, all that is fairest !

All that is tuneful in air and wave!

Shapes whose beauty is truest and rarest,

Haunt with your lamps and spells his grave!

Statues bend your heads in sorrow,

Ye that glance 'mid ruins old,

That know not a past, nor expect a to-morrow, On many a moonlit Grecian wold!

By sculptured cave and speaking river,
Thee, Dedalus, of the Nymphs recall;
The leaves with a sound of winter quiver,

Murmur thy name, and withering fall.

DÆDALUS.

Yet are thy visions in soul the grandest

Of all that crowd on the tear-dimmed eye, Though, Dædalus, thou no more commandest New stars to that ever-widening sky.

Ever thy phantoms arise before us,

Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;

By bed and table they lord it o'er us,
With looks of beauty and words of good.

Calmly they show us mankind victorious
O'er all that's aimless, blind, and base;
Their presence has made our nature glorious,
Unveiling our night's illumined face.

Thy toil has won them a god-like quiet,

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Thou hast wrought their path to a lovely sphere;

Their eyes to peace rebuke our riot,

And shape us a home of refuge here.

For Dædalus breathed in them his spirit;
In them their sire his beauty sees;

We too, a younger brood, inherit

The gifts and blessings bestowed on these.

E

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DEDALUS.

But ah! their wise and graceful seeming
Recalls the more that the sage is gone;
Weeping we wake from deceitful dreaming,
And find our voiceless chamber lone.

Dædalus, thou from the twilight fleest,
Which thou with visions hast made so bright;
And when no more those shapes thou seest,
Wanting thine eye they lose their light.

E'en in the noblest of man's creations,
Those fresh worlds round this old of ours,
When the seer is gone, the orphaned nations
See but the tombs of perished powers.

Wail for Dædalus, Earth and Ocean!
Stars and Sun, lament for him!
Ages, quake in strange commotion !
All ye realms of life be dim!

Wail for Dædalus! awful voices,

From Earth's deep centre, mankind appal! Seldom ye sound, and then Death rejoices, For he knows that then the mightiest fall.

JOHN STERLING.