B

LESSED is he who hath not trod the ways

Of secular delights, nor learned the lore

Which loftier minds are studious to abhor :

Blessed is he who hath not sought the praise

That perishes, the rapture that betrays;

Who hath not spent in Time's vainglorious war
His youth; and found, a schoolboy at fourscore,
How fatal are those victories which raise

Their iron trophies to a temple's height

On trampled Justice; who desires not bliss,
But peace; and yet when summoned to the fight,
Combats as one who combats in the sight

Of God and of His Angels, seeking this
Alone, how best to glorify the right.

AUBREY DE VERE.

NOW OR WHEN.

N the tall buttress of a Minster gray,

The glorious work of long-forgotten men,

I read this Dial-legend,-"Now or When." Well had these builders used their little day Of service-witness this sublime display

Of blossom'd stone, dazzling the gazer's ken.

These towers attest they knew 'twas there and then, Not some vague morrow, they must work and pray. Oh! let us seize this transitory Now

From which to build a life-work that shall last : In humble prayer and worship let us bow

Ere fleeting opportunity is past.

When once Life's sun forsakes the Dial-plate,
For work and for repentance 'tis too late!

RICHARD WILTON.

THE HAWTHORN AND THE WILD

ROSE.

LEARNT a lesson from the flowers to-day :As o'er the fading hawthorn-blooms I sighed, Whose petals fair lay scattered far and wide, Lo, suddenly upon a dancing spray I saw the first wild roses clustered gay.

What though the smile I loved, so soon had died From one sweet flower—there, shining at its side, The blushing Rose surpassed the snowy May. So, if as Life glides on, we miss some flowers

Which once shed light and fragrance on our way,

Yet still the kindly-compensating hours

Weave us fresh wreaths in beautiful array; And long as in the paths of peace we stay, Successive benedictions shall be ours!

RICHARD WILTON.

THE SOUND OF THE SEA.

HE sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied

As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,

The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,

Are one divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason and control.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken, With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep; Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep, Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise,

Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,
Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,

Where, 'mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen,
And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,

Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.