For Memorizing

I live for those who love me,

For those who know me true;
For the heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit, too;

For the cause that needs assistance,
For the wrongs that need resistance,
For the future in the distance,

And the good that I can do.

- Author not Known.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

By Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave,

In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave;

But no man dug that sepulchre,

And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod

And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral

That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the tramping,
Or saw the train go forth;

Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on the ocean's cheek

Grows into the great sun,—

For Memorizing

Noiselessly as the spring-time

Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves.-

So, without sound of music,

Or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown
The great procession swept.

Lo! when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed, and muffled drum,

Follow the funeral car;

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute gun.

Amid the noblest of the land

Men lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place,

With costly marble dressed,

In the greater minster transept

Where lights like glories fall,

And the choir sings, and the organ rings
Along the emblazoned wall.

For Memorizing

This was the bravest warrior

That ever buckled sword;
This the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced, with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor?
The hill-side for his pall,
To lie in state while angels wait,

With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave;

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave,

In that deep grave, without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again,-O wondrous thought!
Before the judgment day;

And stand, with glory wrapped around,
On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life,
With the Incarnate Son of God.

For Memorizing

O lonely tomb in Moab's land!

O dark Beth-peor's hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,

And teach them to be still.

God hath His mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep
Of him He loved so well.

- Mrs. C. F. Alexander.

SHERIDAN'S RIDE.

Up from the South, at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

For Memorizing

But there is a road from Winchester town,

A good, broad highway leading down;

And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,

He stretched away with his utmost speed.
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth;
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.

The heart of the steed, and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;

Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.

But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.